(The Glory of God) in Ministering to the Lord — Paul Washer

I want to thank those who have ministered in song the last two days. And I believe that there is a real sense in which in our worship there ought to be a passion, but there ought to be a dignity that is lacking in many ways and in many places.

And I feel like there's been a passion for Christ communicated in song, but also a dignity, a worthy dignity. Also, I would like to say, I just want to confess something, a problem. My wife is not here.

She usually keeps me in line, but she's not here. And after I preached the last sermon, I had a lot of questions from a lot of different people, and it just brought back something to me that my wife is always warning me about.

She says, Paul, when you have seven or eight days of preaching in one place, she goes, you're careful, you're clear, you start a theme, you follow it all the way through. But she says, Paul, the thing I love about you is there's so much you have inside you that you want to tell people.

But my dear husband, listen to me. Sometimes you just try to tell too much at one time. You'll start a thought and leave people hanging and go on to something else, and they're saying, well, what did he really mean by that?

She says, one day, son, you're going to get yourself in a lot of trouble. Well, she's right. But I hope that at least in the babbling that you caught something of the heart that God wants from you, from you.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, oh, Lord, I rejoice and even laugh, Lord, in being reminded what a child I am, how small I am, how little I know. And Lord, having tasted of your love, it does not disturb me a bit to know that I am weak, to know that I am nothing, to know that I can do nothing.

Knowing, Lord, your great power towards those who fear you, your great love towards those who believe in you. I am content, I am happy, and I am secure. Oh, Lord, you are such a good God. What a God you are.

I worship you, Lord. I praise your name. I magnify you. Oh, Lord, how great thou art, how great thou art, how good you are, oh, Lord. Oh, Lord, I can testify, as I love to say, of all these years of walking with you, not one word of all your good words has failed.

I have never seen the righteous forsaken, the seed begging for bread. I have never seen one of your words dropped to the ground. I have never seen, Lord, one of your promises that did not hold up in the worst of times.

Oh, dear God, we praise you. We magnify your name. We adore you. We exalt you. Be exalted, oh, Lord, above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth. Oh, God. Lord, I pray for wisdom, for wisdom and power.

And, Lord, I thank you for the joy that at this moment is mine because of your mercies. In Jesus' name, amen. Let's turn to Acts chapter 13. We're going to look at worship from two sides. And I also, while our brother was preaching this last thing, I believe that the Lord has really, really helped me see something that I was blind to.

I'm just so amazed, you know, just in one second how you can... It's like the Lord, through preaching, will just open up your mind and you'll just see something you've not seen. And I have two little boys.

One is almost three and the other one is seven months. And they haven't been traveling with me because, well, they're little and things like that. And it put a lot of pressure on maybe my host and me traveling.

And I just saw that the Lord seemed to make clear to me that although not every time will they be able to go, I need to take my boys with me. I need to take my wife and my boys with me, even if it means turning a one-day journey into two days.

Even if it means that my host is going to have to find a bigger place for me. Even if it means that I can't study as much during the day. Because what does it matter if a man gained the whole world and loses children?

And it was just like a light, you know, that was like, whatever your excuse is, it's just not good enough. And this has really got me excited because the hardest thing for me in preaching is leaving behind my wife and my two boys.

And we're going to look like the Beverly Hillbillies going down the road. But I was telling Brother Don's wife and she said, basically, been there, done that, got the T-shirt. So she said, it can be done.

It can be done. What a joy. What a joy. You know, I have found that even when the Lord directs me into something that would seem awkward or even difficult. There's joy and I have joy right now, joy, great joy.

Let's see, where were we? Acts chapter 13. Now, there were in the church that was in Antioch certain prophets and teachers as Barnabas and Simeon that was called Niger and Lucius of Cyrene and Mahanan, which had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch and Saul.

As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, separate me, Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I have called them. If you have done any studying about missions, especially any studying about missions in any institution, you know that this is the pivotal point in the history of Christian missions.

I mean, this is it. You want to talk about the beginning of at least what we know to be the modern missionary movement to the nations. This about is it. This is it. And I find it amazing that this is not a gathering here in Antioch of a bunch of mission experts coming to dialogue about the proper way of doing missions.

This is not a mission conference, so to speak, about how they are going to strategize and manage the evangelization of the entire world. But what is it? That's a very difficult question. What is really going on here?

Because the words that are being used are so unusual to us. As a matter of fact, I have never been in a Baptist church that practiced what I'm seeing in this text. Now, I'm going to open this up for a moment.

If the Lord lays an answer on your heart, please give it to us. But remember, I'm the one preaching, not you. OK, so keep it short. But I want to ask you a question. What does it mean that they ministered to the Lord?

I want to hear from you, what do you think that means? Does anyone have an answer? Anyone have an opinion? I'm sure there's someone out there. Now, don't leave me hanging, boys. Does anyone have an idea?

I don't think I'm going to shoot you down because I don't think my idea is very good either. What does it, pardon me? OK, prayer and fasting, prayer and fasting, that's a good answer. They say they ministered to the Lord.

How did they minister to the Lord? What were they doing? Worship. OK, they were praying. They were worshiping, praising. OK, it did please him, it did, it did. Anyone else? He was the focus. The person of God was the focus.

Notice here, missions was not the focus. God was the focus. Anyone else? Anyone? They were singing. OK, yes, it's part of worship. All right, in some way, they were ministering and serving him in some way.

Now, when you and I think of ministering or serving the Lord, we always think of it as going out from the Lord to minister and serve someone else in his name. But that's not what's going on here. They are ministering to the Lord.

Now, there isn't a whole lot to go on, but let's first of all realize what's probably going on here isn't a Wednesday night church service where someone gets up and leads us in a few songs. This seems to be quite different than that.

It seems to be that these men of God, they came together for no other reason than to worship the Lord. Now, I want to be very careful here, because if we simply say praying, I know what you're going to think.

You're going to think about the type of praying that we usually do. Whenever someone says they're going to have a prayer meeting, what does that mean? A lot of people come before God and start asking him for things.

Is that not basically what a prayer meeting is? And especially a Wednesday night prayer meeting in most churches where we are more concerned about keeping sick saints out of heaven than getting sinners into the kingdom.

Where most of our time is spent on praying for physical ailments and other such things rather than the promotion of the kingdom of God. So I hesitate to say that they had just gathered there to pray because what we would think automatically, well, a bunch of men got together and they said a bunch of prayers about needs of different people.

Kind of dry, but obedient. But that's not what it says. It says they were ministering unto the Lord. We hear this type of language in the Old Testament basically with the Levites. Those priests. And what did they do?

They ministered to the Lord in the temple. And mainly it was a ministry other than the sacrificial ministry, which we don't have to worry about anymore. That was put away with. That was done away with when Christ the great high priest came.

But what is going on here? I want to tell you that I sincerely believe that these men came before the Lord. And basically what was coming out of their mouth was probably something like the book of Psalms.

In turn, as led by the Holy Spirit, sometimes maybe in unison, sometimes maybe as individuals. These men were gathered together blessing the Lord. And how do you bless the Lord? Can the lesser bless the greater?

How do you bless the Lord? By acknowledging His blessedness. By speaking forth His attributes. By crying out His works. By making known His goodness, His greatness, His holiness, His righteousness. Taking in as much as you can of the attributes of God and the workings of God.

And speaking them forth to the throne of God. Worshipping Him. Praising Him. Thanking Him. Demonstrations of gratitude. Demonstrations of tears. Demonstrations of God. Everything we desire. Everything we need.

Everything we want. You have been there for us in every time. They were together worshipping the Lord. And what comes out of it? Probably, well, the beginning of missions to the world as we know it. Now let me ask you something.

Pastors. Leaders. Churchmen. Laymen. When was the last time you did this? And I don't mean call together a church meeting. Have a song leader up here. He leads in a few songs. And then you start praying.

I'm talking about when was the last time a group of men, group of leaders in your church, came together, or the entire church for that matter, and just got to their knees or maybe fell on their faces and just spoke forth the glories and majesty of God.

And worshipped Him with tears and with singing and with prayer. Calling forth His attributes. Worshipping Him. Just being here all together. Crying out to God. Not asking. Not necessarily lifting up even a petition unless it's, Oh God, make your name great among the nations.

But simply ministering unto the Lord. Maybe one person breaks forth in prayer about the holiness of God and goes on and on speaking about the grandeur and the majesty of God's holiness. Another one breaks forth and begins to speak about the faithfulness of God, crying out to Him, extolling Him and worshipping Him for His faithfulness.

Another one who has just been delivered from a terrible trial begins to break forth in tears, crying out that God is His deliverer. And just spend the night worshipping. When was the last time you did that?

I would have to say that this language is foreign to us. You know, I'm going to speak about this a bit tomorrow. It bothers me. I'm asked to speak in a lot of missions conferences. And that the speakers always, as the motivation for missions, it's the dying lost.

The un-evangelized lost. That is the motivation for missions. Really, it's not. I ask missionaries this. Is there ever been a time when you could not sleep at night because literally you were so concerned about the lostness of a certain people group that you stayed up all night crying and asking for their deliverance?

And most missionaries will say, yes. Then I ask them this. Was there ever a time, ever a night that you passed a sleepless night, miserable beyond comfort, because there are places on this earth that belongs to God where men are worshipping rocks and stone and self and not worshipping the one true God?

Are you burdened about the fact that there are places where the banner of Christ is not raised and He's not worshipped as God over all? You see, we think we're God-centered. I want to tell you something, dear friend.

We're still man-centered. We are still man-centered. And then, when someone's called to the ministry, been called to the ministry, I always ask them, what ministry? I've never heard someone say, I feel like God has raised me up to do this one thing, to minister unto Him.

Even music people, even though their language might say something else, in their attitude, I see basically that they see worship still as a ministry unto men. It is a ministry unto the Lord. If you are a minister, you are first and foremost a minister unto the Lord.

You are to minister to Him. Will that not be our occupation throughout eternity? Is that not the occupation of the happy saints that dwell there now? Has that not always been the occupation of His servants, the angels, thousands upon thousands upon ten thousands?

Have we missed the boat? Church, men of God, pastors, ask yourself this question. You know, I don't have to sit here and go through the nuances of this text. I don't have to break it down into a million different subheadings.

I don't have to dissect it. I just have to ask you a question. Have you ever done anything close to what we're seeing here? And isn't it amazing that in the middle of all of this, the greatest mission movement in the history of the world is born.

Maybe we've got it backwards. No maybe about it. We do have it backwards. You begin with man, you don't end with God. You begin with God, you'll end with man. Remember the great commandment. Love the Lord your God.

Then there is a second, but never forget, it is the second. Love your neighbor. Love your neighbor. We are not a people given to worship. And you can't fight me on this because I travel to churches all over this country.

And I have yet to see anything close to this. I see song services. I see prayer meetings. But I don't see anything like this. What is so wrong with this? Is this charismatic or something? Is this liberal?

Or is it biblical? I challenge you men, pastors. Go home to your churches. Call your most trusted, most godly men together for a night. Say come out at seven. It's going to last till well, till we finish.

We're going to worship the Lord. We're not going to ask anything from Him. Except that He might glorify Himself. We're going to extol His attributes. We're going to rejoice in His greatness. And we are going to speak in prayer.

Back to the throne of God. Exalting all the greatness of our Lord. And that's what we're going to do. I can just hear the voices of some. What for? Well, I never heard of such a thing. Well, you ought to read the Bible more.

You say, well, I don't know how to do this. People say, well, I don't know how to praise the Lord. Well, let me give you a wonderful, wonderful book that was written. Take this down. It's an absolutely wonderful book.

It's penned by a few different authors and one main editor. He's compiled all this. It's a wonderful book. It's called Psalms. You know, when young men tell me they want to learn how to preach, I say, well, don't listen to me.

But I'll tell you, here's what you do. I always recommend to them three different preachers. I say, if you will read these men, just read their sermons, you'll learn how to preach. Charles Spurgeon, Martin Lloyd-Jones, and Alexander McLaren.

So read them. You'll learn how to preach. You want to learn how to praise God? Read the book of Psalms. Read the book of Psalms. And read the book of Psalms. And memorize portions of the book of Psalms.

And then when you open your mouth, the book of Psalms will come out. You see, again, much of our Baptistic theology is reactionary. We don't want to have anything like a Church of England prayer book.

But we have a biblical prayer book. The book of Psalms. Another thing about the Catholic Church that's taken the so-called Lord's Prayer and twisted it into a meaningless ritual, a repetition. But we as Baptists, I don't even ever hear the thing among us.

And yet the only time the Lord was asked, how do you pray? He gave us that. You see, we need to be very, very careful. What should we do, Baptists? Baptists, come together. Christians that are here, Presbyterians, whoever you are.

Come together and do what? Worship the Lord. But be very careful. Do you know why? You've heard of cell groups, right? Churches break off into cell groups. You know why that never works among Baptists?

I'll tell you. Because whenever Baptists start making cell groups, they turn them into little Wednesday night services. With one man, one music guy, and everyone else listens. That's why cell groups don't work.

Because we just turn them all into little churches. That's why mentoring and discipleship in the Baptist church is very, very difficult. Why? Because the guy doing the discipleship just ends up being a teacher of another Sunday school class.

We've got to break out of some of these molds that we're in. You try to do this, I tell you, I pray that the Lord will just strike your steeple with lightning. If you go home and try to do this right here, that's found in Acts 13, and you turn it into just, okay, now we're going to have a brother, he's going to come and do some hymns for us now, and then after he does that, we've already told different brothers, and they're going to stand up and they're going to pray.

If you do that, you've missed everything. This is a group of men, a group of leaders, coming together to minister unto the Lord. Why don't we do it? Why? That's the first part that I wanted to address.

Presenting the Body as a Living Sacrifice

Now I want to go to something quite different, over in the book of Romans, chapter 12, verse 1. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. This is a very important passage with regard to worship.

And why is that? Well, running through our evangelical churches and running through even our Baptist churches, there are two sets of footprints that ought not be there. One is Aristotle, our Greek way of thinking, instead of a Hebrew way of thinking.

And the other is the Pope. In what way? You have no idea, neither do I, how much not only our culture, but religiosity has shaped our views of doing things. Even those of us who consider ourselves biblical, fundamental, reformed, or whatever you consider yourself to be, you ought to constantly be aware that you and I have so many ideas that are not biblical.

Let me give you an example. I always tell when I'm doing this thing on the power of God, I always ask the people in the church, I want you to close your eyes, I know it sounds kind of guru-ish, but I always say, close your eyes and I want you to picture in your mind Samson.

Samson. Got that picture? He looks like a Jewish Arnold Schwarzenegger, right? If he looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Philistines wouldn't have had any problem in discovering where his strength came from.

I would submit to you that he probably looked like a rural mountain man in Peru. Thin, wiry, not an ounce of fat on his body, from working on the farm, tilling the ground, doing whatever he had to do.

And if you looked at him, you would have just seen a normal man. You see, you and I are always taking, and we're saying, he's strong. Well, if he's strong, he has to have muscles. I don't care how big your muscles are, you can't pick up the gate of a city and carry it on your back.

There are no muscles that big. It was by the power of God. Now, let's take a moment, just a moment. Now, I'm going to ask you to do something that, please, I don't agree with it necessarily. I just want to prove a point.

If you closed your eyes and tried to picture what you think Jesus might have looked like. Now, for most of you, this wouldn't be a problem. You know the foolishness of that to begin with. But most people, even those who sit in our churches, even some truly converted, when they closed their eyes and they looked and imagined what Christ would be like, he looks just like the Christ of 15th and 14th and 13th century Catholic art.

A Christ that looks like a homosexual, because most of the guys who did those paintings were homosexuals. Now, I said all that to say all this. When we look at this passage, you're saying, well, this is talking about your life and laying down your life and your body.

And what's that have to do with worship? What you need to understand is you and I, the one thing I love about the Puritans is they seem to break themselves free of this thing that still holds us captive.

I've talked to some of you and I've seen the captivity. I heard the captivity in your words. It's the idea that in the Christian life, that the Christian life is still somehow divided up into secular and sacred.

That there are certain things in your life that are sacred, like going to church, like prayer, like fasting, like serving in the church, like reading your Bible and all these things. And then when you get out Sunday and Monday, you go back to the secular.

You go back to your secular job. If you're a Christian, my dear friend, you cannot say that. I don't care if you work in a factory putting tops on bottles. There is no such thing as a secular job. You don't even have a secular moment in your life.

And that is one of the problems. That is why your joy is so hindered. That is why the purpose in your life seems to be, well, at least vague, almost non-existent. Because you don't see that if you're a Christian...

I hear people say, well, you know, as a Christian, you've got the kingdom of God over here and then you've got this. No, you don't. If you're a Christian, everything is inside here. And nothing is secular.

Everything is sacred. Sometimes... I love England, I love the United Kingdom. Except for the Englishman that's working with me right now. He drives me crazy. But other than that, I love Celtic hymns. Why?

Because they were pagans. Now, what do I mean by that? Prior to the coming of Christianity, these guys were pagans. They're worshipping their bow, they're worshipping water, they're worshipping trees and stars, they're pantheists.

I mean, they're wild men in the woods. Especially the Irish. You have to be from the United Kingdom to know what I'm talking about there. But what happened? When they became Christians, they stopped worshipping all those things.

But they saw in all those things the glory of God. So that they sang in their hymns about wind blowing through a meadow, about stars being set on fire by the power of God, about trees and rivers and everything.

Because everywhere they looked, they no longer saw a pantheistic view of the world, but everywhere they looked, they saw the power of God. Someone asked me, when do you know you're starting to grow in Christ with regard to devotion, piety and worship?

I said, when you can be walking around, walking down a lane in the country and come to a small pool of muddy water and see a bunch of tadpoles swimming around in there and fall down on your knees and worship at the glory of God.

When you can look at the back of a leaf and see the veins running through there that bring sap to that thing and make it green and it causes you almost to tremble with fear at the power and wisdom of the One who could do such a thing, you are starting to grow in Christ.

And we have missed it! We've missed it! The dear brother who mentors me, who's been a greatest blessing, he's almost like a father to me. We were over in Romania together and we walked into this Baptist church that was just highly decorated and everything.

You just have to see the way they are sometimes. He goes, behold the fantasy. He said, look at the illusion. We're now in the religious world. And I said, what are you saying? He said, look how we live.

He says, here's this God, the maker of the heavens and the earth. And we go into this little decorated box and this is the only place we worship Him. And then we come out of course and we get back into reality.

We leave the fantasy behind and we return to the real world. We should be men who worship at the drop of a hat. We should be men who when we feel a raindrop hit our nose, it drives us to our knees. We should be men who can open up a science book and look at something like a platypus and just stand in awe at the brilliance of God.

Everything in our lives should be an act of worship. And everything we see that is good and perfect and made by the hand of the Creator, every aspect of our life ought to bring forth worship. It ought to bring forth worship.

I love, as I've said many times, I'm a woodsman and I love to be outdoors. And I love to take my little boy and show him leaves and sticks and bean pods and crickets. For him to jump in water when it floods from the Ohio River and walk around in it and splash.

Take mud and put it on his face. Show him how it dries on his hand. And in all these things say, look what God has done. Shall we not worship? Shall we not worship? Look at the doe, the hind as she leaps over that fence.

The power in those legs, son. Who put that power there? It was God, let's pray. Oh, my dear friend. My dear friend. My dear friend. Everything. You're probably familiar with Plato's idea of the cave. Where there is a fire burning in a cave and the man sees the shadow.

And not the reality of the thing. Bouncing off the cave wall. We have come to almost believe that this is reality. That what we can see is reality. And we don't realize that that which is unseen is the reality.

All of this is a shadow. But everything put here by God has a means, a purpose to it. And that is to stir us to worship. Do on the blade of a grass. The way of a snake on a rock. The sound a frog can make on the first warm day of spring.

All of it. All of it. All of it. Made for God's glory. Now that I've said that. Let's look at our text. I beseech you. Therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice.

First of all, Paul says, I beseech you. Now, Paul was an apostle. But here, this is the heart of a spiritual father. This is the heart of a pastor. This is the heart of a man deeply and dearly united and intimately in love with his children.

He wants the best for this church. He wants the best for the believers. He wants the best for you. And his kindled heart cannot even begin to reflect the fire in God's heart. He says in Jeremiah that he will rejoice over his people to do them good.

And plant them in the land with all his heart and with all his soul. It says that about God. He will rejoice over you to do you good. And right now, through this text, God is beseeching you. He is encouraging you.

He is impleding with you to listen to what he's about to say. Because what he's about to say will do you good. Oh dear brother, your heart has been so beat down. Your heart has been made so dull by what you think it means to walk with God.

And you have missed it. You have missed the joy. It does not come from ministry. It does not come from all these other things. It comes from looking at everything you can possibly look at and realize.

The power and majesty of your God. Thinking back on what God has done for you. And worshiping at his altar. From there comes the joy. And he says, I beseech you, brethren, to do something. To do what?

To present your bodies a living sacrifice. He asks these men, these women, these believers, to give the ultimate gift. To lay down themselves, their bodies, their very lives, as a living sacrifice. You can't ask anyone to do anything more than that.

I mean, this is the greatest thing you could possibly ask a person. To lay down their bodies, their lives, as a living sacrifice. So in order to do something like that, we're going to need some tremendous motivation.

I mean, for what reason, what thing could cause us to lay down our lives? What thing could make us joyfully sacrifice our own bodies? He says it here, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God.

You say, so many brothers and so many people come to me and they say, Brother Paul, I know what's right to do, I just lack the motivation. I know I ought to worship more. I know I ought to do this more.

I know I ought to do so many things. I ought to have more gratitude, more zeal, more passion, more desire for worship. All these things, but I just lack the motivation. Paul says, I'll give you motivation.

And what's that motivation? The mercies of God. And what is he referring to? He's referring to the first 11 chapters of this book. And he does the same thing in the book of Ephesians. You want to know the deepest theology in the Bible?

It's not found in the book of Revelation. It's the first three chapters of Ephesians. And in those first three chapters, he sets before us all the wonderful, marvelous, indescribable riches of the things God has done for us in Christ.

And after three chapters of laboring to explain to us all the wonder that God has done for us in Christ, he says, now live this way. And the same way here, he says, by the mercies of God. The first three chapters of the book of Romans, what do we find?

We find Paul, the master soul hunter, empowered by the Holy Spirit, inspired by the Holy Spirit, writing with one purpose, those first three chapters, to condemn the entire human race. He labors with all his might, with all his pen, with all his intellect, with everything he has, to capture all men and to shut their mouths before a holy God and His law.

And then, 4 and 5, he breaks forth in how shall we be saved? Through the law? No, we're condemned by faith. By faith in Jesus Christ. And he shows us the great work that God has done for us in His only begotten Son.

And then in 6 and 7 and 8, he deals with our problems in the Christian life and he shows how we can be more than conquerors. And then in 9, 10 and 11, three controversial chapters, sometimes in our controversy, we miss the blessing.

These three chapters, if they do anything for us, they teach us that God is faithful. God is faithful. How do you explain the rejection of Israel? How do you explain the Gentile church? How do you explain this and that?

And he just pronounces one thing. God is faithful and every promise He's ever made, He will fulfill to everyone He's ever made it to. And we rejoice in that. And then we get to chapter 12 and he says, Therefore, God having done all these things for His people, in His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, now offer yourself, present yourself as a living sacrifice to Him.

Now, he says, By the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice. Now the first thing, present. The tense here clearly indicates that this is not a continual thing which you do every day to present yourself a living sacrifice.

This is more of a Joshua thing. This day, decide what you're going to do. Once and for all, as the prophet would say, stop limping between two opinions. Once and for all, present yourself to God as a living sacrifice.

As a living sacrifice. As a living sacrifice. Now, there's something very difficult about a living sacrifice and something very easy about a dead one. Dead ones stay put. Living ones slide off the altar.

It is much easier to die for Jesus Christ than it is to live for Him. I'll give you a perfect example. Jim Elliot. I want to take nothing away from Jim Elliot and the work of those men. But Jim Elliot was in that jungle for a few months.

And he was martyred. And he went on to glory. And became probably the most famous or one of the most famous Christian martyrs in the history of the church. But I know old men and old women. Their bodies racked with pain.

Their faces and bodies scarred. Their hearts torn asunder. Because of 30 and 40 and 50 years of service on the mission field. To die for Christ, I can tell you firsthand that when for the sake of the gospel your life is put at risk, a strange and powerful grace comes over you that would make you fight hell with a water pistol.

And firsthand I can tell you that it seems it would be much easier to die for Jesus Christ than to get up and live every day for Him. And this is what we are about. We want to be constant and consistent lovers of our Lord.

We want to put our hand to the plow and not look back. We want to lay down our lives as an act of worship and never pick them up again. And we lay down our lives not with sorrow, not depressed, not wearied.

Because we believe the one who has spoken, that the one who seeks to gain his life will lose it. And the one who loses his life for the sake of Christ will gain it. Lay down your life. Lay down your life.