Great to be with you once again and to speak to you while George is traveling, I believe,
for this week and next weekend as well.
It is always a privilege to open up God's Word together today.
Today I'll begin the first of two, a two-part series, I guess, on mission, and I'll say
a bit more about what the plan will be.
But these are teachings leaning into sermon, okay?
So I hope we'll be encouraged together.
In 1 Peter 2.10 we heard these words,
Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people.
Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
So why don't we pray before we come to Scripture together.
Father, we ask that by your Spirit you'd come, make us teachable,
give us ears to hear, give us hearts to receive.
We trust that you are the God of the nations.
We glory in that and we pray that we would be encouraged today as we open up Scripture together.
This we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.
Brothers and sisters, if we're specifically a people, and specifically God's people,
given that whether we're Jews or Gentiles, we've been given the same ears to hear his voice,
shown the same mercy, and called together into one fellowship.
If that's our basic identity, well, what's our mission in the world?
Throughout history, we've heard different answers to that question.
Going way back, some have said, well, the church's main task is to see to it that the nations are Christianized.
That is, the church should see to it that everyone, from kings right down to the common peasant,
should accept baptism and the rest of the rites of the church by force, if need be.
Others have said, no, that's not our job.
Our job is not to try to convert people to other faiths, to Christianity,
because they have their own culturally appropriate ways of reaching God.
So we should just stick to the basics of justice and caring for the poor and the needy, and so forth.
Still others have said, well, we think the church's main task in the world is to extend the best of our Western Christian civilization
through education, through development, through the arts, through good government, and so forth.
So where do we turn for an answer?
History, of course, has a lot to teach us,
often by way of showing us all the problems that come when we pursue something good but the wrong way.
Or settle for something less than what God commands.
So we have to turn to Scripture so we can make sense of all the opinions we hear on the matter
and learn what God has to say about it.
So I'll be speaking about missions both today and next Sunday,
and my hope is that we'll have a greater clarity about the subject,
but above all that we'll be encouraged and challenged in the task that's before us.
To introduce both talks, I'd like to reflect briefly on two things.
So this serves to introduce both,
so this will encourage you to make sure to come back next Sunday
because I'll have already introduced the main theme.
What Jesus teaches about missions
and what, according to Scripture, is the final purpose of mission.
So first, what does Jesus say about mission?
I think it's really important that we grasp at the very beginning
how very central mission is,
not only to God's nature and purpose,
but to ours as his people.
What do I mean?
Well, consider John 20, 21,
where Jesus says,
As the Father has sent me.
If you have your Bibles handy,
have a look with me at that passage.
Fundamentally,
what we see is that mission belongs to the Father.
It was his work to send the Son into the world.
And Paul gives us the reason for that sending
when he says in 2 Corinthians 5, 19,
that God was in Christ doing what?
Reconciling the world to himself,
not counting people's sins against them.
And Jesus continues.
He says,
As the Father has sent me,
even so I'm sending you.
And so note,
not only what Jesus says here,
but the context,
the when,
of when he says it.
God has just raised him from the dead.
And now he appears to his disciples there as a group.
And first,
he comforts them.
He says,
Peace be with you.
And second,
he teaches them.
He instructs them.
And he bears witness
to what the Father has done.
And he declares what he is now ready to do.
And then thirdly,
he commissions them.
He says,
Receive the Holy Spirit.
If you forgive the sins of any,
they're forgiven them.
And if you withhold forgiveness from any,
it is withheld.
And I think that's precisely why Paul,
after saying what God accomplished through Jesus,
can add this.
He can say,
God has entrusted to us
the message of reconciliation.
The second thing I think we want to have clear
is the final purpose or end of mission.
It's of course very true
that God's will is to call together
a people to be his own
and to save them through Jesus.
But his final purpose in doing that
and in willing that
is his glory.
George pointed to this
when he said two weeks ago
that God wants more people
to glorify him.
It's his will to see his glory restored
over all the earth
as we read in Psalm 57.
The glory theme is strong
in Israel's book of common prayer,
the Psalms.
And particularly Psalm 67
which we've read responsibly already.
And that Psalm has a mission logic,
if you like,
that runs basically like this.
First, we ask God to bless us
and to shine his face,
shine on us.
Why?
Well,
so that his will
and his saving power
will be known among all nations.
And from there,
we pray for the nations.
We pray that the nations may be glad
and that all people everywhere
will praise God.
And then,
why?
Why do we pray that?
Well,
here's the warrant.
Because we long
for all the ends of the earth
to fear him.
See the logic there?
God's favor towards us
serves to bring
the nations to him.
And then as the nations
come to him,
the ultimate end of mission
is clear.
The holy fear of the Lord
is restored.
God is glorified.
Habakkuk says,
Earth shall be filled
with the knowledge
of the glory of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
So thanks for bearing with me
through this introduction.
There's still a bit more.
So let's come back
to the question,
what is the church's mission
in the world?
And I think we have to
clarify this too,
don't we?
Because it might seem
that the message
of reconciliation
is just given to a few.
Initially there,
the disciples,
who would be Jesus'
sent ones,
his apostles,
and from there,
maybe to ordained ministers
and professional missionaries.
And of course,
Jesus does say,
so I am sending you
specifically to his disciples.
But this morning,
we have also heard
in 1 Peter 2
something about our identity
as a church.
Let me ask you,
when you put
the words mission
and church
side by side,
how do you typically
relate those two?
Well, I think
what we typically do
is we think of mission
as a kind of department
or subdivision
of church,
logically.
We have
committees,
don't we?
We have,
I don't know,
finance,
worship,
Christian education,
hospitality,
and of course,
missions.
But,
while this is fine
organizationally
for the structure
of our
church
as an institution,
it can be
misleading
in a way
because it gives
a picture
of church
as something
that's pretty well
fixed somewhere
so that it has
a headquarters
where it does
one set of things.
One set of things
happens at headquarters
and then
it has outposts
like in the military.
It has missions
or mission stations
out there
where another
sort of set
of things happens.
That is,
if the church
has budgeted
for them,
right?
You see what
I'm getting at?
I think we have
to turn this
on its head
and think of
the church
itself
in missionary terms.
As Tim Keller
says,
the church
exists
to be
a mission.
That means
everything.
Our worship,
our teaching,
our hospitality,
our seminaries,
all of them
have to be
thought
through
in relation
to our
basic
missionary
identity.
as I've
pondered
that truth
that mission
is central
to our
identity,
I've come
to this
conclusion.
The church
is perpetually
on the go.
In other words,
a little bit
like my
grandson,
Timmy,
who's perpetually
on the go
when I look
after him
most mornings
of the week
and he keeps
me fit.
In other words,
being sent
is not
an occasional
activity
of the church.
This means
that until
Jesus comes
again,
we never
have the
luxury,
if I can
put it
this way,
of arriving
anyplace.
As if having
done our
missionary work,
well,
we could just
sort of
say,
okay,
well,
that's done
and now
we can
turn our
attention
to other
things.
We're always
in the business
of going
out in one
way or another.
yes,
we do
seek to
be salt
and light
where God
has placed
us,
but,
well,
to that
extent,
we're fixed,
if you like,
in one place
and you can
locate us
on the map
here every
Sunday.
But we
never settle
so permanently
so that all
that's left
to do
is hatch
and match
and dispatch
the faithful
in a kind
of chaplaincy
mode of
thinking of
church.
Nothing
against
chaplains,
right?
But that
can have
a way
of taking
church for
granted,
right?
And so
we have
church,
this steady,
stable institution
with its
chaplains
and its
parishes
and so on
and so forth.
Sometimes
our going
out is
literal
as when
we commission
workers to
go somewhere
else on
our behalf
and they
really,
truly go
out on
our behalf
or because
God has
allowed us
to be scattered
from our
homeland as
many Christians
find themselves
in history.
At other
times,
the going
out is
more of
an attitude
or inward
habit,
if you like,
in the sense
of going
out of our
comfort zone
so that we're
ready to meet
others where
they are for
the sake of
the gospel.
And it's on
this basis that
I think we can
say that we're
a missionary
people.
Well,
so you ask,
well,
what about
those we
actually ordinarily
refer to as
missionaries?
Well,
I'd like to
suggest that,
well,
we can continue
calling them
that and it
doesn't present
a special
problem,
but we have
to know
what we
mean.
What we
mean is that
they are,
if you like,
special field
workers.
That's about
the best I
can come up
with right
now,
special field
workers.
And we
support a
number of
them here
at Messiah.
And we
do this
and we
pray for
them regularly
and specially
because we
recognize the
particular nature
of their
work.
Until I
was 18,
I lived in
a special
field where
I was born,
Mexico,
where my
parents served
for close to
50 years with
an evangelistic
organization you
may have heard
of called
Operation
Mobilization,
maybe I've
mentioned it.
We were
blessed to
know that
Christians in
the U.S.
and Canada
and other
places were
supporting us
with their
prayers and
with their
finances.
And what
made that
field work
special or
extraordinary?
Now, I
don't recall
thinking of my
own identity
as a
mish kid,
as a
hardship,
because we
really were
given a
lot and we
were blessed
with all
kinds of
opportunities.
But as a
family, we
had left
behind certain
things, like
regular contact
with relatives,
back then it
was not easy
to go up to
the states to
visit relatives.
We did it
maybe once a
year, maybe
not.
And all the
things you miss
from your
native culture.
But this
wouldn't be the
real reason that
the field work
was special.
What made it
special were
two things.
First, evangelistic
outreach in
Mexico was
based on a
particular need
that had been
identified.
that was
the need to
preach the
message of
the gospel in
a land whose
form of
religion had
in many ways
obscured the
gospel itself.
For instance,
when my dad
first went from
village to
village back
in 1960 and
following,
giving out
gospels of
John and
preaching in
the town
squares, he
would often
find himself
chased out of
the town by
two people,
the mayor
and the
village priest.
Think about
that.
Pre-Vatican
II, the
people didn't
really have a
chance to read
the scriptures
for themselves,
so dad was
doing something
very counter
cultural in
handing out
gospels of
John in
the village
town squares.
And to
this day, the
dominant form of
religion in
Mexico remains a
kind of blend
blend of
medieval
Christianity
with a host
of pagan
customs, offering
little hope to
its adherents.
And I just
should add a
footnote here.
This fact should
alert us to the
way we sometimes
do.
Don't allow the
gospel to be
distinguished from
our own culture
and how much our
own culture impacts
the way we think
of Christianity.
A second reason
why the field
work in Mexico
was special was
that it served
as a constant
reminder that
mission is a
global reality.
The message
was churches
send out
field workers.
And the
lesson for us
all, whether
we're going or
we're sending in
that sense, is
that we are a
global people.
We're part of a
global fellowship.
I'm going to
speak about that
more next time.
My basic point
is this.
While it's really
important that we
learn to identify
special fields,
maybe sometimes
we get it right,
sometimes we get
it wrong, but we
have to learn to
identify special
fields, and then
send and support
people to work in
those fields, it's
still true that we're
all called as God's
people to missionary
work.
The church is
apostolic, both
because it's
founded on the
authoritative
teachings of the
apostles, right, and
the prophets, but
it's apostolic also
because we're an
apostolic people.
We're sent as a
people.
So in the
remainder of this
talk, I want to
focus on the
missionary task where
we happen to find
ourselves.
So we'll call it
mission among the
Gentiles.
We could say pagans
if you like, the
way some translations
render 1 Peter 2.12.
And then next Sunday
with a couple of
lessons from the
book of Acts, we'll
look specifically at
how local and
global are to be
thought together as
we think about the
missionary task.
So turn with me
back to that passage
in 1 Peter 2.
We'll go through
it.
We'll see, I think,
and I trust that the
missionary task involves
three habits, and
we'll start with the
first part, which is
verses 9 and 10.
But you're a chosen
race, as we read, a
royal priesthood, a
holy nation, a
people for God's
own possession, that
you may proclaim the
excellencies of him
who called you out of
darkness into his
marvelous light.
Once you were not a
people, but now you
are God's people.
Once you had not
received mercy, but
now you have received
mercy.
So what's the habit
that we're called to
here?
Well, it's
proclamation.
And this, I think,
this emphasis here
reminds us how
important and how
central proclamation
is, and how much it
has a logical
priority, how much
testimony, giving and
bearing witness, has a
logical priority over
any other missionary
habit we may think of.
Certainly our testimony
will be given
expression in many
different ways, but it
will always have a
propositional
dimension.
It will always have
content, rational
content.
The fact is, there
are truth claims
that are embedded in
the way we behave, and
in the way we worship,
and in the way we
serve.
And these will be
verbally declared
as God gives the
opportunity to
declare them.
And that's why if you
read further down in
chapter 3, Peter says
in that often quoted
verse, speaking of the
apologetic ministry,
be ready to give an
answer, an apologia, for
the hope that you
have.
Be ready to speak.
Are we ready to speak
as a people?
Are we ready in our
day-to-day encounters?
Are we ready to give a
word about the hope we
have?
So what are the
excellencies that we're
called to speak about?
Well, some translations
say virtues, and others
say praises.
And I think what we're
basically declaring are
God's marvelous qualities
and his marvelous deeds,
his mighty deeds.
They're marvelous if you
look back in chapter 1
because he's done, he
has done the marvelous
work of causing us to
be born again to a living
hope through the
resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead.
God's marvelous
Well, and in doing
that work in history
and Christianity, the
gospel is always about
what God has done in
history.
And in giving us, he's
given us, he's worked in
us in history and in us
giving us a new identity.
He's quite literally
united us to Jesus.
And by adoption, he's
drawn us into Jesus' work
as prophet, as priest, as
king.
And by his spirit working
in us, we're what
Peter says, a royal
priesthood called to
something, called to
proclaim his excellencies.
That's what we do as a
prophetic people as well,
sharing in Christ's
threefold office.
And to this, to the
first hearers of this
message, whether Jew or
Gentile, and we have
reason to believe that
these scattered
congregations were made
up of both believing
Jews and Gentiles in
Asia Minor, this was a
very, this was very
encouraging news.
If they were worried
about their displacement,
about their exile, they
were reminded that Jesus
himself was rejected.
As Hebrews says, he
suffered outside the
city gates.
And they had, they had
this truth proclaimed to
them that Jesus was now
the cornerstone of a new
and everlasting temple.
And they could, they
could be encouraged by
this.
And why is it so
important that we learn
to acknowledge the
priority of proclamation
today?
Well, apart from the
fact that scripture
gives a natural
priority to the, to it
as the ordinary means
that God uses to
soften hearts and to
bring new life, I
think the short answer
is that claims that
certain things are true
for everyone, claims
that certain things are
true for everyone, are
automatically suspect in
our day.
To say publicly, God has
spoken.
He's made us male and
female.
That Jesus rose bodily
from the grave.
Well, these things make
people uncomfortable,
positively uncomfortable.
Statements like these
are taken, assumed to be
some kind of power grab
or something.
But we're still called to
utter them as clearly as we
can and as humbly as we
can, as chapter 3, verse
15 reminds us.
And we do this trusting
that the power belongs to
God and not to our
learning or to our
eloquence or anything of
the sort.
Now, in our daily lives,
as we go about ordinary
things, proclamation doesn't
come easy.
As even one of my heroes,
John Stott admitted, he
tells of how he was once
on a train in Wales in
one of those compartments
where you share, some of
you probably traveled in
those compartments in
Europe where you share
this cabin with one or two
other passengers.
Well, as it happened, his
traveling companion that
time was getting ready to
shave.
He had his shaving kit out
and everything and he
accidentally dropped it.
Well, Stott recalls that
this man vented his anger by
taking the name of Christ in
vain.
And Stott goes on, and I'll
just quote from his little
book, Our Guilty Silence.
He says, I said nothing.
Indeed, I was sorely tempted
to remain silent.
The usual plausible excuses
came crowding into my head.
It's none of your business.
He'll only laugh at you.
But the previous evening I
had preached in church from
Ephesians 4, 26 and 27.
Be angry, but do not sin.
I had spoken about righteous
indignation and the facade of
sweet reasonableness which
often conceals our moral
cowardice and compromise.
An inner struggle followed as I
argued with myself and
prayed.
And not until 10 or 15 minutes
later did I find the courage
to speak.
Although his immediate reaction
was unfavorable, I was soon
able to witness to the Christ he
had blasphemed and to give him
an evangelistic booklet.
From proclamation we turn to a
second habit.
So in verses 11 and 12 we read
this.
Beloved, I urge you as sojourners
and exiles to abstain from the
passions of the flesh which wage war
against your soul.
Keep your conduct among the Gentiles
honorable so that when they speak
against you as evildoers, they may
see your good deeds and glorify God
on the day of visitation.
The second habit of a missionary
people, abstention.
From what?
Abstention as in stay away from
fleshly lusts.
The reasons are spelled out.
They're all encapsulated here.
We're exiles and pilgrims and sexual
impurity basically obstructs our way
to the promised land.
Most importantly, it's by nature
soul destroying.
And for instance, today we're all
too familiar with the way the lies
of pornography rewire the brain, if
you like, knocking us out, flat out
spiritually.
And so Peter, with this sort of thing
in mind, calls the first century
Christians to let their behavior
among the pagans be honorable and
blameless.
They were the atheists of the day, not
worshiping according to pagan custom.
So they would have been accused of all
kinds of wrongdoing and of not going
along with established custom.
But if they acted honestly, with integrity,
and treated others with respect,
they could trust that these good works
would bear fruit in God's time
on the day of his visitation.
Here Peter echoes Jesus' words in
Matthew 5.16.
Let your light shine before others that
they may see your good deeds and glorify
your Father in heaven.
Now the hope that was there in Peter
was that godly conduct would be itself
a form of testimony, even if it were
received for a time as falsehood.
Because a day of visitation would come.
And what's that day?
Well, God, either in Jesus' coming,
at the end of time as we know it,
in any case, God would bring things
to a crisis point, as one commentary
puts it.
Shining light on the real nature of things
so that their hearts might change
and give him glory even, the text says.
For what?
Well, for the work he was doing all along
in changing people's lives so that they
could truly live a godly life.
Now why is godly behavior so crucial
for mission here where we find ourselves today?
Well, the reasons are basically the same
as in the first century.
The Bible's guidelines for sexual purity
are taken to be plain silly at best
and at worst evil.
But if we give in and we pretend
that God's standards are of little consequence,
well, what sort of witness will we have
made or given according to the hope
that we have and according to the new life
God has given us?
Let me illustrate.
There's a denomination in the U.S. and Canada,
well-known here in Canada,
that this past summer took a very clear
counter-cultural stand on what counts
as sexual impurity.
Before its councils was a question.
Given widespread acceptance of sexual intimacy
outside the bonds of marriage
between one man and one woman,
in this area, the people were asked to consider,
can we agree to disagree on this
or must we consider it part of our essential doctrine?
A strong majority said that it was the latter.
Its sexual purity is part of our core doctrine.
Ultimately, the church pointed to its catechism,
happens to be the Heidelberg Catechism,
and said that its condemnation,
the condemnation of unchastity in that catechism,
includes adultery, premarital sex,
extramarital sex, polyamory, pornography,
homosexual sex.
On that basis, the synod declared
that the church must warn its members
that those who refuse to repent of these sins,
as well as of idolatry, greed, and other such sins,
will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Now, just under a third of the denomination's delegates
were unhappy with this outcome.
But what's at stake, ultimately?
From what we've seen in 1 Peter 2,
what's at stake is the church's very identity
as a forgiven, redeemed people set apart by God.
I think this has to be front and center.
What's at stake is our very identity
as a redeemed, forgiven people
who once walked in darkness,
but to whom God has shown mercy.
What's at stake is the church's soul
as a band of exiles.
What's at stake is the church's witness
as it has yet one more opportunity
to declare that God's standards
are actually true and lovely,
no matter how much the world might say
that they are hateful and unappealing.
So let's move to the third part of our passage.
Verses 13 to 16.
Be subject for the Lord's sake
to every human institution,
whether it be to the emperor as supreme
or to governors as sent by him
to punish those who do evil
and to praise those who do good.
For this is the will of God,
that by doing good you should put to silence
the ignorance of foolish people.
Live as people who are free,
not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil,
but living as servants of God.
In each of these passages,
we see how much there's an identity
of who we are in Christ
and what follows from that.
So from proclamation and abstention,
we come to submission
as a third habit of a missionary people,
according to Peter.
We can look at this one briefly
because the missionary significance
is the same as with abstinence.
To do what is right in this area
can serve as a form of testimony,
a testimony that in this case
silences those who accuse believers
of doing wrong,
of being insubordinate.
When Peter says,
that's why Peter says there at the end,
don't use your freedom
as a cover-up for evil.
He's referring to the fact
that some of us
will be quite tempted,
wouldn't we,
with our Christian freedom
basically to disregard,
to not acknowledge human authority
and its legitimacy.
We'd become anarchists,
as I well remember from Tolstoy
in my Russian literature reading days
where Tolstoy decided
he would teach a form of anarchism.
But as a habit,
it's worth considering on its own
because submission reflects
a third aspect of our identity
as God's people.
As a royal priesthood,
we have truths to proclaim.
Here's why I said
our identity issues in a practice.
As a royal priesthood,
we preach.
As strangers and sojourners,
we abstain from certain things.
And now as servants of God,
we are called to submit
precisely because we're servants of God.
And we submit to human authorities
for the Lord's sake,
in other words,
because God has willed it for us
in this life.
Now this doesn't rule out
civil disobedience
when we find
that the laws of the land are unjust,
but the principle remains.
We submit to the authorities
as unto God
because we trust,
ultimately,
that he's the one that's in charge.
He's the one who bends
history to his will.
He's the one who,
as I've heard George say or write,
who takes the messiness,
right,
and writes straight lines
with,
writes straight with crooked lines.
In our own day,
the temptation
to be disrespectful
to our elected leaders
can be very strong,
particularly when they seem deaf
to the concerns
of ordinary people.
We all know
what I'm referring to
from the last winter.
But how easy is it
to pray for those in authority
as we're taught in Scripture
while standing beside certain signs
that became prominent
during that movement?
And how does a visible endorsement
of such signs
impact our Christian witness?
I know one of my grandsons
was asking me,
well,
what are those signs,
Granddad?
What signs are you talking about?
I said,
well,
they were very rude signs,
Aidan.
We shouldn't stand by those signs.
And he said,
what did they say?
And I said,
well,
just nasty stuff.
And he interpreted it
in his own way.
But the question is,
what is our witness
when we publicly endorse
this kind of disrespect
for leaders
whose principles we might disagree,
whose ideas we may disagree with profoundly,
but that we ultimately disrespect them?
How can we pray for them?
So let me conclude
by bringing us back
to where we started.
I mentioned some of the main ways
that the church in history
has thought about mission.
So just to put it in other terms,
there was,
if you like,
the medieval,
let's make converts model
using force.
And I could give you stories about that
from my own Latin American understanding.
But there's also
the pluralist,
let's make friends model
since our job would not be
to preach Christ to others,
but to work together
for the common good.
And then there's the enlightenment,
let's make good citizens model,
which calls on the church
to extend Western civilization.
But Jesus gives us another set
of marching orders, doesn't he?
He says,
go and make disciples.
What does that involve?
Well, I hope it's clear to us this morning
that it involves our whole lives
because there's no room for
what Lewis talked about,
Christianity and-ism,
if you like.
Here where the good news of Jesus,
Christianity and,
where the good news of Jesus
is kind of collapsed into conquest.
The good news is collapsed
into social projects
as good and worthy as they may be,
but still the gospel
is kind of collapsed into them
as though they meant the same thing.
The gospel is collapsed
into building a civilization
of one sort or another.
We're talking about
a basic plan of disciple making
that involves us
really fundamentally
in looking up
to see what God is doing,
what he's doing
in changing hearts
the way he's changed ours
through our prayer,
through our witness,
so that we have the privilege
of baptizing people
and of teaching them
to obey all that Jesus commands.
And it involves trusting
that whatever success we have
is because of his power,
because he's promised
to be with us by his spirit
until the end of the age.
Finally, you say,
well, that task sounds
really, really hard.
It sounds overwhelming.
The needs are so great.
Opposition to God's ways
is so strong.
There seems to be
indifference everywhere.
So let me just close
with this recollection
from a moment I remember
from our Stella and I
had three years in India
and a moment
where we were visiting
our old friends
from Regent College
and Ivan and Sheila Satya Vrata.
They live in Calcutta.
And he was preaching
in his church
in the Assembly of God Church
there.
And I don't remember
the sermon topic
because it's been a while now.
It's been more than 10 years.
But I do remember this
very vividly.
At one point,
he was making reference
to the overwhelming needs
in his city.
And he looked up
and he prayed
and he said,
Lord, we have a problem.
Just like that.
And then he immediately added,
but I'm available.
Please use me.
And I think that
that has stayed with me
as the proper attitude
to acknowledge
that God is sovereign.
He's in charge.
He knows how he's working
and in which way
in time,
in our own times.
And he
is eager
to use us
as his instruments
wherever we,
wherever he happens
to place us.
So why don't we pray
in closing?
Dear Lord,
as with my friend Ivan
in India,
we acknowledge
the need is overwhelming
and we just ask
that you would help us
to be attentive
to your care,
your concern
for the world around us,
even where we are.
And we ask
that you would
draw us more closely
to Jesus
in our walk with him.
Make us more attentive
to your word
and draw us
into even greater fellowship
with one another
so that the world
may know
that you are king.
As we ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Thank you.