Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah. It is wonderful
that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah, either
by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray
for us that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself?
The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian, we really,
I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the Bible,
they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will
do what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a
non-Christian checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't
hesitate to send us questions. It helps me, actually, to know, as I'm preaching, how to
deal with the types of things that you're really struggling with. So God bless.
It's a privilege to bring the message once again, as our rector, George, is away. If I didn't say my
name earlier, I'm Steve, and I'm delighted to see you here this morning. I see some new faces,
so I do look forward to chatting with various ones afterwards.
Driving home from Florida a few weeks ago, my wife Stella and I had the chance to spend some time in
the area of Massachusetts that once witnessed a great spiritual awakening. In fact, the first of a
series that we refer to as the great awakening that began in the 1730s there. Now today, 300 years later,
the same churches that witnessed that revival have been swept quite thoroughly up into the new thing,
the new form of Christianity, which H. Richard Niebuhr, excuse me, he described so well when he said,
some decades ago now, that this new form of Christianity tells the story of how a God without
wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without
a cross. But in the 1730s, God moved in a very special way. Now in my history class that I got to
teach at McGill about a year ago, we got to read about it in Jonathan Edwards' narrative called
A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God. That was from the year 1737. We didn't read the
whole thing, but we read a good chunk of it. In that piece, Edwards wrote about how, quote,
at the latter end of the year 1733, there appeared in our young people, listen up young people, a very
unusual flexibleness and yielding to advice. This came as a big surprise, and Edwards tells us why.
The greater part of the young people seemed at that time to be very insensitive to the things of
religion. They were, many of them, very much addicted to night walking and frequenting the
tavern and lewd practices, wherein some, by their example, exceedingly corrupted others.
It was their manner very frequently to get together in conventions of both sexes, for mirth and
jollity, which they called frolics, as they would often spend the greater, I'm sorry, and they would
often spend the greater part of the night in them without regard to any order in the families they
belonged to. But a great change happened, said Edwards. Not just one or two, but a great many of them
had become teachable, moved by what they were hearing from the pulpit on Sunday. They were,
after all, a church-going culture. And they became open to correction. And before long, in groups of
five or six, they were all, to all appearance, savingly converted. And some of them wrought upon in a very
remarkable manner. I've shared with you just the early moments in that narrative, because
I want us to consider, guided by the chapter that Morris read, 1 Thessalonians 1, what it looks like
when God's word comes with power. As we heard, Paul said to the church in Thessalonica,
for we know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you
not only a word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. I invite you to
pray with me once again before we get into our text.
Father, we, to enter into those secret places of our heart, and we trust that you do that,
even as we open our hearts to hear your word. And we ask that you would show us our need,
and also that you would, above all, show us Christ in all his glory, and all his majesty,
as we hear your word today. This we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.
Now, to answer the question, what happens when God's word comes with power?
We're going to begin in the middle of the passage, verse 6, and then we'll make our way back.
Just a quick word by way of background to the letter. It was around the year AD 50 that Paul
had planted a church there in Thessalonica. If you've been to that area of northern Greece,
it's Macedonia. It stretches into the Macedonian part of, I guess, the former Yugoslavia,
and we have Thessaloniki there, which is the modern Thessalonica in that part of Greece.
But he was soon driven out, very soon driven out by a mob that had formed when some of the leaders
of the synagogue didn't like all the details in his message. He didn't get to witness the church's
growth there personally. He did get to hear about some of that from Timothy not long after.
And the report Timothy brought gave rise to this letter, probably Paul's first epistle,
written when he's further... And it's full of encouragement to the young church there in Thessalonica.
So we're in the book of Acts in an indirect way. Okay, so a little bit further ahead, but
George gave me the privilege of selecting the passage. I've pondered this passage a lot,
and I've never had a chance to teach it or preach on it, so this is a good opportunity for me.
Right in chapter 1, I say there's a great deal of encouragement in it, because right in chapter 1,
beginning with verse 6, and already in the context of giving thanks to God, Paul reminds them what
happened once they embraced and took hold of the good news of Jesus. Let's look at that under three
headings. Participation, pattern, and proclamation. The first thing Paul rejoices in is the fact that
the believers in Thessalonica have come to participate in Jesus's sufferings. Now, Paul
doesn't use that word. I'm borrowing it from Peter, from 1 Peter 4.13, because the theme is the same.
Peter says to the Christians in Asia Minor, the scattered ones up there,
rejoice in as much as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed
when his glory is revealed. The point is this. Christ, in Christ, suffering and joy actually go
hand in hand, as if they were a single blessing. How is that? Well, see what he says, Paul says in verse 6,
you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction with the joy
of the Holy Spirit. In the context of the whole passage, Paul's meaning is this. You've been united
to Jesus in his sufferings by the work of the Holy Spirit, who gives you joy in the midst of the
suffering that you're having to endure as you wait for his coming. Paul himself may have been run out of
Thessalonica, but these believers had, if you like, extended his visit in their own person, extended his
impact as they took up his example, facing challenges really on two fronts, from the wider pagan world,
but also from the Jewish leaders who were opposing their message. What an encouragement for us today
is as we face very similar challenges. Insults from those who think we're too religious, or maybe just
jeers, I don't know, and condemnation from those who perhaps think we're not religious enough.
It's an interesting conundrum, isn't it? Too religious in one context, because we say to modern pagans,
those whose only real concern is maybe the here and now, there's a day coming when we're all stand
before the judge of all the earth, like Paul said there in Acts 17. But we're not religious enough
in another context because of the freedom we have found in Jesus. We don't have to try to earn
or merit God's favor. So let's turn from that participation to the word pattern. The second
thing Paul rejoices in is in verse 7. He says that by participating in Christ's sufferings, they became
an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. That's the regions immediately close by.
Macedonia and in Macedonia and Achaia to the south. That is, in their union with Christ by the Spirit,
who gave them joy in their sufferings, Christians in their region and in nearby Achaia to the south
were able to look to them as models and patterns of life in Christ, even as they imitated Paul,
and in imitating Paul, Jesus. And the lesson that I think that you and I can take from this
is that while God surely sees fit to use these under patterns in our life, if you like,
godly men and women, the true and the real pattern is, for the Christian life, can only be Jesus.
He's our model for our formation and our reformation, so that if we want to know how we're supposed to
remain in Christ, once the Spirit has done the initial work of uniting us to him, we only need to
look to Jesus' example, asking the Holy Spirit to fashion us according to it. And what does that
pattern look like? Well, we know that Jesus is priest, king, and prophet. We refer to this as his
threefold office. As priest, very briefly, as priest, what does he model? Well, he models the way of
self-sacrifice. As king, he models the victory that we have through that sacrificial death on the cross for us.
And as prophet, what does he model? Well, he models the way in which we, as that royal priesthood that
Peter talks about in 1 Peter 2.9, declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness
into his wonderful light. See that, how we're included in Christ's threefold office by the Holy
Spirit who unites us to Jesus. So from participation and pattern, we come to that third
reason that Paul rejoices, and it's in the word proclamation. As a result of their example, in
verse 8, he says this to the church there in Thessalonica, not only has the word of the Lord
sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia nearby, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere,
so that we really need not say anything. Of course, that's hyperbole, isn't it? But because he does say
something, but it's as though we didn't need to say anything. What we see here is that life in
obedience to Jesus translates into verbal witness. That is, we see God's word here literally going far
beyond the Thessalonian churches, Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. Their verbal testimony was a local one,
but the Holy Spirit promised by Jesus had made it a global witness, hadn't he? As Jesus' followers
simply passed the good news along. The Holy Spirit, if you like, multiplied that witness,
even as Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes. I think it's good to remind ourselves here that
this came about not through big preaching campaigns or professional evangelists and apologists,
but as God used ordinary Christians just like us. In his book, Evangelism in the Early Church,
Michael Green describes the evangelism that happened, quote, in homes and wine shops,
on walks and around market stalls. These people did it naturally, enthusiastically. Having found
treasure, they meant to share it with others to the limit of their ability. I think what's important
there is that within the gifts that God has given to us, within even considering our temperament and
the way we just naturally raise the question of the things of God with friends, just this natural
lifestyle and personal evangelism that happens. Not because our purpose in befriending others is to
gain converts, but because we want to share that treasure that is ours and that we simply want to pass it on.
If you have a look at the end of our passage, verses 9 and 10, you'll see that Paul names three habits
that are essential to the church's witness. We're still on the topic of what happens when God's word
comes with power because these habits serve as means of grace. They form and they fashion us as God's
people so that verbal testimony flows more or less spontaneously out of these habits. And the three
habits that I want to highlight are welcome, worship, and waiting. Welcome, worship, and waiting. I'll just
look at them very briefly because they're really only in verses 9 and 10. Verse 9 begins like this,
for they themselves, that is the believers in Macedonia and Achaia, report concerning us the kind of
reception we had among you. Here Paul, I think, is referring to the welcome they gave not only to him
and to his traveling companions, Silas and Timothy, but to the message they brought when they were with
them on Paul's second missionary journey. And if we stay with the rest of the letter, we'll see that the
message and the messengers go together because of the bonds of fellowship in the gospel.
In chapter 2, for instance, Paul mentions how eager he has been to see them again. He just loved being
with them. This is a tribute to their hospitality, but also to his desire to be with them and to see
them grow in the faith. The habit of welcoming the word in our lives and in our homes and in our
congregations is linked to a new way of worship. Paul reminds them in the second part of verse 9
that they, what did they do? Well, they turned from idols to serve the living God. I think we need to
grasp how radical this change was because the point is that the believers in Thessalonica hadn't just
stopped burning incense in pagan shrines and that sort of thing. If in the welcome they had given to the
gospel, they turned away from that self-sufficiency that is natural to us, here in their rejection of
idol worship they were saying no to self-worship ultimately because that's where idolatry leads.
This truth came through rather powerfully for me when I read the testimony of a man called Rabbi
Maharaj, a former Hindu guru in training in his book, Little Book, The Death of a Guru. Since his
tradition had taught him that it was proper and good to venerate and worship things, objects in creation,
in the world, one day he, as he was contemplating his own image in the mirror, he asked himself,
well, what's really keeping me from worshiping myself? And this produced such a feeling of horror
in him that he was led eventually to seek to know the living God and to trust in Jesus as his Savior and
Lord. You can read that in that book, Death of a Guru. I think I may have shared with you a personal
experience that's really in the same category because I was, I suppose, in the early stages of
imagining that the real mediator between God and man was a more or less impersonal cosmic Christ.
Sounded Christian because I was still talking about Christ.
But this cosmic Christ that Jesus of Nazareth really only pointed to the cosmic Christ so that in effect
Jesus could be a Savior, but not the Savior and Lord of history.
And when I came
came to realize that one day,
that's where my thinking,
when I came to realize that that's where my thinking was actually heading,
I felt a shock that Rabbi Maharaj must have felt because
I became aware that I wasn't really thinking in Bible categories of another worldview.
So back to idols for a second.
We should remember that the business of turning from idols is also a discipline in the Christian life.
It's not just a one-off,
but as Calvin said, we're a factory of idols, in fact.
In fact, we know how well we invent our own and how much we need God's grace daily to help us not to confuse things
that are passing with things that are eternal.
From true worship, Paul turns to the third habit of waiting.
So we have this welcome.
We have a new worship, and then we have a waiting.
In verse 10, he reminds the church in Thessalonica that they began to wait for God's Son from heaven.
What we see here, I think, is the way God adds a new blessing to the new identity that he gives us in Jesus.
It's the blessing of a new orientation or direction.
History now has purpose, and the flow of time is no longer meaningless.
That's because Jesus' promise to return for those who are waiting is a sure one.
When we take these three habits together as a bundle,
we can see how they form the basis of our witness in the world.
They account for the strong global witness that even that young church there in Thessalonica had.
And the lesson for us is this.
To welcome God's word is to receive a treasure that we have no business locking up in a safe,
since it's meant to be shared.
While to turn to the living God and to wait for Jesus from heaven
is in effect to say no to the gods of the age and to man-made kingdoms.
And that decision, when we take it to heart,
sooner or later manifests itself publicly as a testimony to what is real and lasting.
And the world, insofar as it remains in a state of unbelief,
is going to be pushing back, to be sure.
As Paul contemplates all these signs of God's power,
his first instinct is to give thanks.
And that's why the whole context of this first passage is one of thanksgiving.
And he says, we give thanks, in verse 3, to God always for you, all of you,
constantly mentioning you in our prayers,
remembering before our God and Father your work of faith,
and labor of love, and steadfastness of hope.
There's that triad of faith, hope, and love in our Lord Jesus Christ.
What he acknowledges here is that true faith, by its very nature,
is a living, dynamic faith.
Why? Well, because the same spirit who unites us to Christ
also gives us the power to obey
and to be confident that God's promise is sure.
Now, having looked at some of the lessons in that second part of this chapter,
at this point I have to change gears a little bit.
Because as we read on and come to the middle of the passage,
we bump up against something that's fairly puzzling.
Maybe it stood out to you too.
And it has to do with the word chosen.
I know George spoke about the twin word,
predestined, a few weeks ago.
So before we consider how this passage might challenge us today,
I think we need to take a little bit of a step back
and do something maybe a little unusual in a sermon,
but that's try to ask,
what is Paul saying about this business of election?
Let's hear verses 4 and 5 again.
For we know, brothers and sisters loved by God,
that he has chosen you,
because our gospel came to you,
not only in word,
but also in power,
and in the Holy Spirit,
and with full conviction.
Now, I'm sure you know there's an age-old debate
among Christians about this matter,
and I think it's safe to say
it comes down to something like this.
Does God's yes of election
come logically after my yes of faith,
or before it?
Can I say that again?
Does God's yes of election
come logically after my yes of faith,
or before it?
Now, whether the answer is clear to you already,
or it sounds like I'm launching into an exercise
in hair-splitting,
bear with me just a minute.
It's a difficult topic,
and the difference matters.
I'll try not to make the question
more complicated than it is,
but I'll also try not to oversimplify it
as if we could just resolve it neatly once and for all.
After all, there are godly men and women
on both sides of this intramural debate
among Christians.
In one way of looking at the matter,
God elects you and me
on the basis of our faith response
to the message of Jesus.
So Paul's message in 1 Thessalonians 1
would go something like this.
When the Holy Spirit impressed upon you
the truth of the message that we preached to you,
you responded in faith with deep conviction.
Your yes to God then led to his yes,
and he included you in his family.
Got it?
And the other way of looking at the matter,
election is unconditional.
So the meaning of what Paul says is this.
When the Holy Spirit impressed upon you
the truth of the message that we preached to you,
he gave you such a deep sense of conviction
that we have reason to believe
that he has chosen you.
His yes made your yes possible.
It freed you to respond in faith.
So is there a huge difference here?
Well, some say no,
because if there were,
then we would have sorted it out by now
in the churches
after all the centuries.
But I think the difference is important
when it comes to thinking about
our assurance of salvation.
And with this, I can offer the main reason
why I think the second way of looking at the issue
is the right one,
or at least the one that creates the fewest problems.
And when I teach theology,
I try, and I'm asked my opinion on thorny questions,
I say, I think, in my view,
this creates the fewest biblical problems.
And that's how I approach this.
In the first approach,
in which God's yes comes after mine,
I'll be inclined to link election
to my faith response.
I'll tie them together.
Election, my faith response.
And I bundle them together.
And this means that if I ever sense
that my faith is weak,
or even gone,
which is going to be inevitable,
I'll doubt that God has made me
his own after all.
And when I doubt that,
I easily start to imagine
it's something I have to earn back.
I proceed in the Christian life asking,
have I done enough
to please God
and to enter into his kingdom?
But in the second way of looking at the matter,
I link election to God.
Now, how does that make a difference?
Well, I think it makes all the difference
because when I think about the assurance question,
I let it rest with his decision,
with his faithfulness,
and working in me that conviction
that his promise is sure,
and that apart from his forgiveness,
I'm lost.
And what I find in the Christian life
is that God uses my moments of doubt
and hesitation and wandering,
as we sang, prone to wander.
He uses these themselves
to bring me back to him.
What I hope is clear at this point
is that while God's work in election
certainly makes me receptive,
it doesn't make me purely passive
so that I just kick back.
How do I know this?
Well, I know it
because after Jesus says to his disciples,
already you're clean
by the word I have spoken to you,
he adds this.
You remember?
Now abide in me.
John 15, 3.
As George explained a few weeks ago,
I think,
God's predestination of events
does not undermine human freedom.
Rather,
it establishes human freedom.
So too in election,
God's word frees us
to trust and obey.
And while we're in John,
consider the priority
of the Father's yes
over yours or mine
when Jesus says,
all that the Father gives me
will come to me,
and whoever comes to me
I will never cast out.
John 6, 37.
And Jesus restates that promise
a little later in John 10.
My sheep hear my voice,
and I know them,
and they follow me.
I give them eternal life,
and they will never perish,
and no one will snatch them
out of my hand.
Verses 27 to 28 in John 10.
Now, at this point,
we might still want to ask,
doesn't this second way
of looking at the matter
make God's decision
kind of arbitrary?
And if God can elect some,
well, why doesn't he elect everyone?
Well, the answer to the second question
might be this.
If Scripture is our guide,
as it ought to be,
we can say that God
hasn't revealed why he elects some
while passing by others.
Just as we can't really say
why he doesn't right all the wrongs
in an instant.
Why he didn't make a way
for Adam and Eve
to go straight back into the garden.
Why some are born into the privileges
of a Christian home
and others aren't.
Why he turned Northampton, Massachusetts
upside down in 1737
and not say Quebec City.
Or for that matter,
why some people groups
are drawn into the scope
of salvation history
while others are left out.
These things belong
in the category
that we mark
the deep things of God.
And I don't think it's a cop-out
to keep that category there
because there is so much
that God has not made plain
in his word.
And in any case,
it's pretty clear
from all these examples
that the fairness question
is still there.
It doesn't go away.
God works powerfully here
and not there
whether you take
the first view or the second.
And so you're left grappling
with why?
Why does God work like this?
This way here
but not there.
Well, what we can say
to answer the first question
about this arbitrary business
is that nothing that God does
is arbitrary.
We know this
because Scripture
reveals to us
his attributes,
his qualities,
his qualities of faithfulness
and justice
so that his works are perfect
and that he does no wrong
as Deuteronomy 32
and verse 4 tells us.
What God has revealed clearly
and beautifully
is his purpose in election.
It's so that his children
can be assured
of forgiveness.
It's so that his children
can have joy
even in their suffering.
It's so that
they can go out
and be a light
to the nations.
There's nothing in them
that made them electable.
He just chose them
and he said,
here,
I want you to have
the assurance
of my love.
I want you to have
the assurance
that I'm with you
in your suffering.
And it's precisely
because our focus
is on what God
is doing
through election
to reach the nations
that we have
a good hope
of everyone.
We have a good hope
of all.
The Swiss reformer
Heinrich Bollinger
wrote in 1560,
he said this,
and although God
knows who are his
and here and there
is mention
made of the small
number of elect,
yet we must hope
well of all
and not rashly judge
any man
to be a reprobate.
While the Bible
is clear
that not all
will be saved
in the end,
the picture we have
of the last judgment
in Matthew 25
reminds us
that there will
be surprises
on that day.
To bring this
towards a conclusion,
I don't even know
how long I've gone,
but I'll bring it
to a conclusion.
What might God
be saying to you
and me this morning?
I can imagine
someone,
whether here
or online
or down the line
or downstream
or whatever
the right term is,
I can imagine
someone here
saying,
wow,
I'd love to have
that assurance
you're talking about,
but I'm not really sure
that God's word
has ever come to me
as Paul wrote
with full conviction.
There's so much
that really
is unclear to me.
Well,
what I want to say
to you
is that we need
to be clear
that by full conviction,
Paul isn't talking
about having everything
figured out.
You can see
I haven't got
everything figured out.
he's talking about
that heart confidence
that God is trustworthy.
That heart confidence
that God is trustworthy.
That he promises,
that,
I beg your pardon,
that the promises
set forth
in the gospel
are sure.
That is,
that as I put my hope
in the very putting
of hope
in that promise,
I can be sure.
I experience
the assurance
that his death
on the cross
covered my sins,
all my sins,
and that Jesus' words
now apply to me.
My sheep
hear my voice
and I know them.
That's what it means
fundamentally
for God's word
to come with power.
Even when we don't see
mass conversions,
our response
is simply
to come to him
just as I am
without one plea,
but that his blood
was shed for me.
And in doing that,
find in him
the rest
we desperately need.
And what a joy
it is simply
to know
that in Jesus,
the living God
knows us.
There's this dynamic
aspect of election.
Election is
of the Father,
but through the Son,
through the proclaimed word,
challenging us,
confronting us,
speaking to our hearts.
That's what I would want
to emphasize here
in Paul's message.
Maybe someone else
is thinking something
a little different.
Maybe someone's saying,
I have trusted
in God's promise,
but if I'm honest,
I'm not sure
that my life
could exactly
be described
as one of waiting
for Jesus to return.
And I think
God's word for you,
as we've heard
from Paul's letter,
would be something
like this.
You've heard
how the welcome
we give to God's word,
how turning from idols,
and how waiting
for God's Son
from heaven
are all bound up together.
In other words,
to have one
is to have the others
by the work
of the same Spirit
who brought us
to Jesus
in the first place.
So take hold
of his word.
Let his word
do its work
in you,
and you will
find yourself
longing
for the new creation,
even as creation
itself is
in its own way,
as Paul explains
in Romans 8.
Longing
for what?
Well,
for the children
of God
to be revealed.
Dig into Scripture
and you'll find
yourself longing.
I've experienced that,
and I'm not
the greatest prayer
or the greatest
Bible reader,
but by God's grace,
as we get
into his word
and his word
gets into us,
we find ourselves
longing for his promise.
Someone else
might here be thinking,
wow,
it's wonderful
to think that
mission belongs
to God,
that's encouraging,
and that the business
of changing hearts
is his work.
So does that mean
that evangelism
is not really
such an urgent task
after all?
He's doing the work.
Maybe we can
remain somewhat passive.
And I have to admit
that it's sort of
tempting to think
that way.
And hence,
the blessing
of preparing
this sermon.
Because I'm forced
to ask again,
what exactly
is urgent
about the task
of evangelism?
So,
I'll end
with just two points.
Well,
first,
I think
the task
of evangelism
is urgent
because as long
as people
don't turn
to the living God,
they remain
in idolatry,
without hope
and without God
in the world,
as Paul says
in Ephesians 2.12.
We can ask ourselves,
where were we
before
the gospel
came to us
and we were able
to take hold of it?
What was our state?
And in getting
the good news
of Jesus
to sinners
from every tribe,
tongue,
and nation,
God has seen fit
to use human witnesses.
He could
reach them
directly
if that's what
He so chose to do,
but He has chosen us
as His witnesses.
As Paul says
in Romans 10.14,
how can they believe
in the one
of whom
they have not heard?
And how can they hear
without someone
preaching to them?
The second reason
that the task
of evangelism
is urgent,
I think
perhaps
the more profound
reason,
even though
the depth
of wandering
and sin
is profound,
but I think
the more profound
theological reason
why the task
is urgent
is because
God's command
and call
carries its own urgency.
It's in the very
nature of God's call.
When the living God
speaks,
His word
accomplishes
its purposes.
That means
that when He
declares through Isaiah,
turn to me
and be saved,
all the ends
of the earth,
for I am God
and there is no other,
we're not
simply in a position
to say,
well let me consider
that a bit
and I'll get back
to you.
See what I'm saying?
God's call
has its own urgency.
And I
learned a bit
of that
reading
Bonhoeffer's
call to discipleship.
Even back there
with my students
at McGill,
I'm privileged
to read these books
with people
who believe
all sorts of things
and yet
McGill gave me
the privilege
of reading
these books
with them
and we read
The Cost of Discipleship
or at least
part of it
in that class.
And that point
is so strong
in that book
that God's call
has its own urgency
as when Jesus calls
and we simply
get up
and leave our nets
and follow Him.
So,
may God strengthen us
to do that
this morning
without delay
according to our need.
thanks be to God.