DEC 31 2017 | Philippians 1:12-14

Sea Change Church · "Philippians 1:12-14" · Charles Revis · December 31, 2017
Philippians 1:12-14
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Good morning. So this portion of the scripture is Paul's chains advance the gospel, Philippians 1, 12 through 14. Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ.

And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare the more to proclaim the gospel without fear. The word of the Lord. Now I can tell everyone at once, so I don't have to tell the story 50 times. That's an ACL surgery from basketball. And my wife wants me to quit. I'm not sure I'm ready to retire.

The world of low class basketball needs me. And my four rebounds a game. So although Kobe put out a thing about saying goodbye to the game. And so if he can say goodbye, maybe I will as well. Nonetheless, so good to have you here. I love, I love, I love coming to church. I love coming on Sundays. I love seeing you. I love what God's doing on this corner.

Volunteer, newcomers. Like, I love when the newcomers come, meeting them. Hey, you know, who are these potential people that might have roots here? Who, you know, who are, you know, seeing the kids, the volunteers, our elder board, the new elder board that is here. It's just exciting. And, you know, very little Christian growth happens outside of relationships.

And that's why we are really going to be focusing this year on not only making sure that you get pastored well, but you get opportunities to be connected. We want you to be connected. Over the last four or five days since my knee surgery, I've been binge watching Netflix, which I can't binge watch much more Netflix. I don't know how people do that on a regular basis.

But nonetheless, I watched the entire Crown series, okay? So two seasons, not bad. Semi-clean for today's day and age. The episode on Billy Graham was amazing. I love that one. And some others as well. But the one thing that struck out to me was this symbol. And as God and I was in prayer, this is a symbol that's been around for a long time, but definitely used in World War II.

And it stood for victory. And I think one thing I want us to, well, I want to personally lead myself into, because I can't lead you anywhere where I don't personally have the ability or willingness to go. I want to lead into victory. I want us to have victory. I want us to stop laying down to temptation so easily. I want us to stop being so manby-pamby in our devotion to Christ.

I want us to strengthen our backbones. I want us to look depression in the face, anxiety, fear, suicide, poverty, all these ills of the world. And I want us to stand up. And I want us to have victory. I want us to plunder the strong man's treasure. Scripture says that we have the ability to not only tie up the enemy, but to plunder his things. And I want us to not just take, you know, shots from the enemy, but to stand up and to put him on guard.

I want to put the enemy on guard. And I want us, as a church, to begin to take ground back. I believe we're in a season with tumultuous things happening in the world, but we live beyond the headlines here. We want to live and harvest our life and our victory from eternity. And so over the next few months and over the next year, we are going to do everything we can to start equipping you and ourselves to live in victory.

In the word of God and in prayer. And there's a whole bunch of different things. You'll be hearing more and more about the vision. I want to give you a quick, before I introduce our speaker today, I will be back in the pulpit next week. Thank you for the break. If you want to know, I'm in the pulpit about 85% of the Sundays. So I'm here a fair amount, although I got a little break here with a knee surgery and over Christmas.

So I thank you. We have some great speakers. Elliot Pastor Jim, Harry, have done a great job. I want to let you know where I'm going in the scripture, before I introduce our district superintendent. I know that's not your correct title, but he's in charge of the American Baptist section that we are a part of. And I'll give you about that in a second.

I'm going to be doing two weeks on human sexuality over the next two weeks. I do that every year now in January. I believe human sexuality is something as a culture of believers we need to be able to articulate, articulate, understand, and be able to have confident discussions with people about what the word of God means. Talked about marriage, homosexuality last year, and other things besides that.

And we had, I think, some really good dialogue. This year, I want to focus in on a couple other things. One, the first one will be on lust. I believe that you see this Me Too movement. You see all this, but what you don't hear is the word sin. No one talks about where this is all coming from. And so there is a focus, obviously, on men in power. But I've seen this year 50 teachers, women teachers, that have been accused of molesting or having sex with their students.

That's not a good thing. And that's happening on the side with the women as well. So it's easy to tell one narrative and not another and talk and miss the idea that this world is full of lust. Lust is one of the seven deadly sins. And I will be doing a series on the seven deadly blessings that come from running from the seven deadly sins later on in the year.

But we'll talk about lust. The next thing we never talk about is divorce. The key that I want to speak about in regard to divorce is not to pile on to somebody who has had tragedy in their life, but to inspire, especially inspire, the commitment of Christian marriage, vow, and covenant. So that we can start changing some of these statistics. I come from a child of divorce and experience much of that.

And many of you have as well. And you've been a part of these things. I encourage you not to miss these Sundays selectively because of something you might not want to hear. But I want to let you know I'll be speaking two weeks on that. And then two weeks on human secularism, which is secular religion. There is a spirit of religiosity in the world today, but it is secular.

We'll speak two weeks on that. And then we're back to David. And I'm very much looking forward to part two in the David series, which will be called The Fugitive. Now, we had David facing the giant series. Part two is The Fugitive. Part three will be David the King. So we're really looking forward to this trilogy with David as we come on. But I want to let you know where we're going as a church.

Now, with that said, who are we as a church? And one of the reasons we have our guest speaker today, and he's becoming a close friend of mine, Charles Revis is in charge of the Northwest District of American Baptist. This church, I inherited it as American Baptist. I have never been an American Baptist before. I've been everything but an American Baptist for the most part.

Just been a few uniforms I haven't worn. And what I have decided is I wear the uniform of Jesus, and I'm going to go serve where God puts me, as long as it's biblical and founded on the scriptures. And so the American Baptist, like every other denomination, has some really high highs. Martin Luther King, Jr., the suffrage movement for women and empowering women, one of the first denominations to begin empowering women.

Walter Rauschenbausch with the social justice movement. They birth things like the YMCA, the Salvation Army. The American Baptist has some real highs. One of the things they do allow, though, is for churches to be completely autonomous. So there is no heavy-handed top-down. You can do as you wish within the American Baptist, and they allow this autonomy.

It is part of German pietism. It goes back. I don't need to get into German pietism, but nonetheless. So it allows us to be pretty much a non-denominational church, which we kind of focus and function as. But we've been an American Baptist church for almost 100 years. I love this group within the American Baptists that we are a part of. They are biblically, have rustic values that I believe are very strong and biblically-centric.

I love the people that are a part of it, the integrity of Charles and the others that I have met. And I'm very excited about what God is doing in many branches of the American Baptist movement. And I'm proud to be a part of it. And I'm especially proud of its history, especially with caring for the poor. I've been speaking to you a lot about that and the social gospel movement, which I will be speaking about at some point.

With that said, today we have Charles Revis. It'll be my last Sunday out of the pulpit. But he's going to be coming and speaking about taking the mess that is our lives and having a clarion call to use the realness of who we are to change the world. And this is one of the things people didn't like about Jesus. He was too human. There has been multiple heresies throughout history in the last 2,000 years to make Jesus less human.

And I think one of the mistakes of modern Western Christianity is to make our pastors and our leaders less human. We put them up and we make them shiny and slick and perfect. And we put lives of perfection in front of you that you could never meet. All the time we preach about authenticity. So with that said, I'm excited today to have Dr. Revis.

Is it Dr.? It is Dr., isn't it? Let's welcome up Dr. Charles Revis to speak to us today. Thank you, Adam. That was almost a sermon, wasn't it? Wow, I've got some power going there. Let's do the invitation and then I'll preach. How's that? Hey, isn't Adam great as a pastor? I mean, he really is. I work with a lot of pastors and churches in the Northwest and I see a lot of them and Adam is one of the top ones.

He's in terms of leadership, his love for you, his love for La Jolla and his sense of vision and mission. It's great to be back with you. I've been here three times. This is my third time. And it was through Clay Ford that you guys joined the Northwest. And I know that's a little crazy. But our region of churches includes Washington, Idaho, Montana, Utah.

We have a church in Nevada. We have a church in Tucson. And we have a church in La Jolla. And as you can imagine, when Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, which is my hometown, is 35 degrees and messy, it's really nice to come to La Jolla. Right? Even on a cold day like La Jolla. What is it, 70 degrees today? Coeur d'Alene is going to be 35 and really sloppy, messy.

But we did have a gorgeous white Christmas. It was just what you would expect. Snow coming down, 27 degrees. Lots of snow in the mountains and great skiing. So come up and visit us sometime. Here's the real deal. Why we associate together is that we believe that by partnering together that we can be stronger rather than simply being separated. And your church is partnering with our churches to reach the Northwest and beyond for Jesus Christ.

And one of the ways you can do that is pray for us. And send us good leaders like you did recently. You sent us Bryce Mara to Pastor Livingston, Montana. And we need those kind of resources. And our people, too, can pray for you and support you and encourage you. The Northwest is the second most unchurched part of America. And if we can figure out how to reach people for Jesus in the Northwest, we can reach America for Jesus Christ.

And it takes churches like yours, partnering with our churches, to do that work that we've been called together to do. So I just really value you and appreciate the opportunity to be here with you today. And thank you for praying for us, remembering us, and being partners together in ministry. Well, speaking about reaching the world for Jesus Christ, today I want to talk some about how the Lord might want to use you as a witness to Jesus Christ and to the gospel.

And so we're going to be looking at Philippians chapter 1, 12 through 14. You heard the scripture read earlier. You'll want to open up there. And as we get into this, I think it's pretty obvious that whenever we talk about sharing our faith, there's a certain amount of resistance, a little bit of fear begins to rise up. For example, Leighton Ford was doing this.

This guy's not working. Would you take this off of me? Yeah. Test one, two, three. Do you want to take it off? I'll trip on it if you don't take it off. Right. That's right. Okay. Where was I? Okay. Leighton Ford, an associate of Billy Graham, when he's doing training in Detroit, asked a question among the people. And he asked, what is your greatest hindrance in witnessing?

And 9% of the people said they were too busy to remember to do it. 12% said that their lives weren't matching up to what they knew they were supposed to be about as a Christ follower. And so they just kind of held back. 28% said that they felt like they had no real information to share. They just felt inadequate. And 51% said that they were simply afraid that fear kept them from talking about Jesus.

I think there's another factor. I think in today's world, our lives get so crazy, so busy that we get caught up in our stuff that we find it hard to talk about Christ to others. For example, say you're a mother with young children. And you've got two little ones in the household. They're in diapers. And you have lots of baby talk conversations with them, but you haven't talked to an adult in three years.

Or maybe you lack education. And you just feel like you're just kind of inadequate when it comes to talking to someone rashly about the faith. And when you do venture, summon up some courage to talk to someone about Jesus, you find out that they have a Ph.D. in existentialism. And it's like, oh, my goodness, I can't even begin to get to first base with this person.

Or maybe you're just too busy to share your faith. You're working 50, 60 hours a week. You've got five kids. They're all in soccer. You feel like an Uber driver most of the time. And you just don't have many opportunities to interact with people far from God. Or maybe you are a believer who's really serious about following Jesus, but your husband isn't.

He just walked out the door. You're feeling like, wow, my life doesn't measure up. How can I talk to somebody about Christ when my life is falling apart? Well, maybe you're in that situation today. Maybe as you look at your life, you think, boy, my life is so crazy. How would I dare talk to someone else about Christ or point them to Jesus even though I know he's real?

I know that he has given me purpose. He's given me forgiveness of my sins. He's given me a great future in him. I know he is my king and my Messiah. But I just don't know if I can really talk to others about Christ. Well, in today's passage, Paul shows us how God can use any kind of a situation, no matter how crazy it is, and use it and turn it into an opportunity to talk to people about Jesus Christ.

So look with me first at verse 12, Philippians 1, verse 12. He says, now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. Well, the back story here is really important. Details can be found in Acts chapter 21 through 28. What happened there is that Paul was falsely accused by legalistic Judaizers.

He was hauled into court in Palestine. He couldn't find justice there, so he appealed to Rome. He appealed to Caesar, and being a Roman citizen, they said, okay, Paul, we will take you off to Rome under guard, and you'll have your day in court. And so when he arrives in Rome, he's confined to house arrest 24-7, and this will continue for two years.

Meanwhile, news about Paul's situation has made its way back to Philippi, most likely through Epaphroditus, another big word that's hard to say. And the believers in Philippi, these are people that love Paul. You may remember that they had partnered with Lydia to found the church. He's been their spiritual father, and these folks are partners with him, the gospel.

They pray for him. They are behind him, and yet they find out that he's landed in jail, and that he's no longer doing the ministry. The apostolic ministry is spreading the gospel, and there's great concern about him. And so Paul wants them to know about his situation, and he says, I want you to know. And what's interesting in this, the way he put this, is that this phrase that is usually used by Paul when he wants to straighten out some kind of theological nonsense or some ethical nonsense that maybe somebody's engaged in.

It's his way of setting the record straight. And it's important for him to do so in this moment. Why? Because he is the point person for taking the gospel to the Gentiles. And if he is sidelined, if he is benched, the rest of the team is going to be discouraged. And they're going to hold back, and they will not follow in the footsteps of Paul, so to speak, to take the gospel to the rest of the world.

So from a human vantage point, it really is a bad deal when you think about it. Paul is the primary apostle to the Gentiles that Jesus Christ had tapped for this work. He's the reigning world champion for reaching pagans for Jesus. And here he is. He cannot minister as you would imagine him to do. Of all the crazy things, he's in prison. He can't travel.

He can't preach to large assemblies. His wings are clipped. It appears that the mission to the Gentiles is DOA. And to top it off, some other so-called believers are adding to his suffering, if you look on down to verses 16 through 17. So overall, this is a bad situation for Paul. But he proceeds to set the record straight. He says, I want you to know that what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel.

Advanced the gospel. Now, I find it surprising that Paul doesn't say a thing about his personal situation. If I were in prison, the first thing I'd be talking about is how bad it is, right? But Paul doesn't. He doesn't say, well, the food is pretty bad or the food is fairly good. He doesn't talk about how much sleep he's getting. He doesn't talk about his health.

He doesn't talk about which guards are abusive and which ones fail to wear deodorant. There's no word at all about his personal suffering. And I find that amazing. Instead, he focuses on how God is using his imprisonment to advance the gospel. He assures the Philippians that his mission of spreading the gospel isn't in jeopardy. In fact, the Lord has used his imprisonment to an opposite effect.

And we're going to talk about that in a few moments. But here's a lesson for all of us. It is normal for Christ followers to experience pain and difficulties while living in this broken world. And even when we are leading an important ministry, the truth is that life can throw all kinds of difficulties at us, all kinds of challenges at us. And these have the potential to cause us to doubt God's goodness, to doubt whether or not he really loves us or care for us.

It can cause us to grow frustrated with God or to be discouraged when suffering through some of the things that life throws at us. And we can simply lose hope. And we can even find ourselves kind of turning our back on the Lord or losing our zeal for God. So it's important for us to affirm this, that our world is broken. It's a fallen world. There are no guarantees that we'll be riding high in every situation.

Jobs dry up. The heart attack strikes. The newborn is colicky. Your sweet dog dies and passes away, but the cat is still alive. It's just kind of the way it works, right? So let's just realize that it's normal for followers of Jesus to have difficulties and challenges. Just yesterday, one of our pastors passed away from malignant melanoma. He was a pastor in Sunnyside, Washington, in the Yakima Valley.

And Pastor Tim came to us two years ago after we had come alongside the church in Sunnyside to help them out. Their pastor of something like 25 years had retired. And we came and did a church assessment for them. And we helped them get a really good intentional interim pastor in there and helped them strengthen themselves in the interim period.

And we were so excited when they called Tim to be their pastor. We got him out of California. You know, lots of good pastors come from California. And we were so excited about six months in, he was diagnosed with melanoma. And for the last year and a half, it's been this period of suffering and difficulty and challenge for the church and for himself.

And yesterday, he went home to be with Jesus. That's not at all what I'd expected when we helped the church call Tim to be their pastor. Now, we have a really great transitional pastor in there for them right now, helping this congregation along the way. But the point I'm saying is that even in the midst of ministry, in the midst of following Jesus, some crazy things can be thrown our direction.

Just remember that Jesus did say these words. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart. I have overcome the world. And then in Matthew 5, 45, Jesus said, The Father causes his Son to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. And this is just a fact of life. So here's kind of the deal. In such times, how should we handle them?

How should we respond? And I would say, let's look at Paul and look at his example and learn from him. And you'll see that Paul, even in prison, finds a way through it all to be used by God, used by Jesus Christ in a powerful way. And in the midst of it, he finds a way to rejoice regardless of his suffering. And it's pretty amazing. I don't think there's much help that comes from asking why in such situations.

Because we're usually tempted to do that. Why, Lord, have you allowed me to go through this? Why, Lord, is this happening to me? I think it's far more productive to ask this. Lord, how do you want to use this present travail, this present difficulty, to bring glory to your name and to use me for the advance of the gospel, even in spite of what I'm going through?

In fact, why don't you take, Lord, this situation and use it in a way that would open doors that I would never have imagined would open? In fact, that's kind of where we're going with this. The point is today is that God will use difficulties, no matter how crazy, to advance the gospel. So look with me again at now verse 12 and 13. We'll add 13 to it.

Paul said, now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. Now that may have been surprising news to the Philippians. Paul makes this incredible assertion that his imprisonment has actually served to advance the gospel, and not in any small way. That word advance is a vivid word, and it was especially used for the advancement of an army unit or a special ops unit, so to speak, cutting down all the obstacles, cutting out the undergrowth, removing tangles and obstructions, so that the main army can follow along behind the advance unit, and the army could make a major advancement.

And Paul is saying this, what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. It has paved the way for a great movement of God's spirit in the Roman Empire. How could this possibly be? That far from shutting the door to Paul's work, it actually opens the door for a major strategic step forward. Well, the answer is in verse 13, where Paul literally says, my chains manifest Christ.

That's what it literally says. My chains manifest Christ. And because of this, it's become clear throughout the palace garden, everyone else, that I am in chains for Christ. It's become apparent to the most powerful people in Rome that he's not there as a political prisoner. He's not there as a lawbreaker. He's not there as a wrongdoer. He's in prison because he proclaims that Jesus Christ is the King and Messiah.

So how can this be? Well, if you back up a little, we can fill in a little bit more of the story. Paul has been delivered to the captain of the Praetorian Guard. Your translation says the palace guard. The Praetorian Guard was the most powerful group of people in all of Rome, something like 9,000 soldiers, some say 16,000. They were concentrated in Rome as a unit that functioned almost as the emperor's own bodyguard.

Over time, they were feared by the Caesars, and no Caesar became Caesar unless they backed the man that they were putting forward. Other than Caesar himself, there was no more powerful group of people in the Roman Empire than this influential body, the Praetorian Guard. As a prisoner, Paul is confined to a house under house arrest 24-7. He's not in a prison cell as we might envision.

Night and day, there is a private guard from the Praetorian Guard who is chained to him for at least four hours, five hours, six hours. And that little chain is a short manacle called a hallucis. And this is the exact Greek word that's used here. My hallucis manifests Christ. And here's what takes place. Every four to six hours, the guard locked to Paul would unlock the hallucis.

A new guard would step into the room, go over to Paul, lock himself in. And the other guy would be relieved. And so this would take place every four to six hours, day by day by day for two years. And if you started to do the math, literally thousands of guards out of the Praetorian Guard have been locked to Paul and have had a personal interview with Paul for at least four or five, six hours.

They kind of get this in your head. He would get to know the guard. He would ask questions. He would ask his story of his life. He would begin to tell his story. He would begin to talk to him about the Messiah, Jesus, that he's a representative Jesus of what Jesus had done for every person at the cross, that Jesus was resurrected in power and glory, that no matter whether you're a Roman guard or not, he wants every person to open up their heart and give their heart to him and let him be their savior.

This is what the message was that he was giving to every one of these guards. And if the guard fell under conviction, he couldn't get loose because he was chained to Paul. You know, talking about a captive audience, right? And because the other believers in Rome could come to the house, they would meet with Paul, they would pray with Paul, they would have little worship services there, and the Roman guard was the guest as part of the worshiping service.

So imagine with me how many people came to know Jesus Christ out of the most powerful collected body in Rome over that two-year period. From what we can tell here, a significant number of them bowed their knees to Jesus Christ, and this was the very method that God in his sovereignty had chosen to use to open up the Roman Empire to the gospel.

You see? And Paul, in his wildest imagination, couldn't have orchestrated it. He couldn't have worked this out himself. Instead, God took his imprisonment, took what was supposed to be bad, and turned it inside out and used it as the very open door to advance the gospel in an incredible way. And this is what God does. Think about your own life for a moment.

What is your difficult situation? What are you suffering with? What are you wrestling with? What are you frustrated about in your life? What seems to be the thing that keeps you maybe a little angry at God, maybe a low simmer? Maybe the thing that kind of holds you back from talking to others about Jesus because you have this little doubt about his goodness because of the thing that you're wrestling with in your life.

And the fact is that most of us in this room have something like that going on in our lives, if we're really honest. Paul never asked, why me, God? Instead, Paul looked deep into his circumstance and he discerned how God in his circumstance and in his sovereignty could appoint him, Paul, to be used by Jesus in a powerful way, even in under house arrest.

I want you to think about that in your own life. In my life, I'm going to be skipping over, by the way, on the slides towards the end because of our time. Seven years ago, I was skiing on December the 3rd up at Silver Mountain in Kellogg, Idaho. And I was an avid skier, still am. But on that day, December the 3rd, I took a really bad crash and fell on my head, hyperextended my neck, found out I had stenosis, didn't realize I had stenosis.

What happened was the spinal cord in my neck got yanked up against the vertebrae in my neck. And I ended up with a dime-sized contusion in my spinal cord. And I woke up in the snow completely paralyzed. I couldn't use my legs. I couldn't use my arms. And I was scared to death. I thought I'd broken my neck and I'd be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life.

So they dragged me off the mountain, took me down to the hospital. And over the next two weeks, I learned how to walk again and how to use my arms and hands again. And today I live with central cord syndrome, which basically means that I'm a walking quadriplegic. Every part of my body is affected. My hands are buzzing. This leg here is about half numb right now.

My feet are buzzing. I live with constant pain as a result of it. I have spasticity, all kinds of weirdness. I was weird before, and now I'm even more weird. And it was a very frightening situation. I didn't know whether I'd ever be able to walk to work again. I didn't know how it would affect my ministry. And through it, over time, God has put me in touch with some incredible people that have experienced similar maladies like this.

It also put me in touch with the deep suffering that a lot of people wrestle with day in and day out. And yet, in the midst of it, God has given me a chance to talk to people that are far from God, that I never would have had a chance to. There's a fellow back in New York who came into Coeur d'Alene with his wife to meet me because he had a similar accident as me.

I sat in the living room with a guy in Merritt Island, Florida. Same thing. These are people I've met online that had a similar accident and a similar malady as me. And then I've met some incredible believers who are quadriplegics. For example, I'll tell the story of Ryan Atkins, and we do have some pictures of Ryan we can show you. There's Ryan.

He's a complete quadriplegic. He can't move his legs or his arms. When he was in his freshman year in college, he had a terrible car crash, rolled his car, broke his neck. He's not even able to sit up fully in his electric wheelchair. He's been able to complete a college degree. And here's what blows my mind. He leads a high school boy's Bible study at his home every week.

And these same young men helped him arrange the dinner table and all for the evening that he proposed to his wife to be. And there's a picture of her as well there. That's Ryan. Think about your own situation. You know, maybe someone's asked you to teach junior hires to be a sponsor and you're scared to death. Think of Ryan. Maybe someone, maybe God's spirit has been tugging on you to be a volunteer in another place in the life of this fellowship.

Think of Ryan. Maybe in your situation, you've gone through something that where you could pull together a support group that could be used to talk to others about Jesus and to encourage them. Whatever your situation is, I think that is the very thing that God can use, just like he used Paul's imprisonment to open doors to the gospel. So that, and here's the deal, most of us, when we have a challenge about sharing our faith, we start to feel guilty.

And if the preacher doesn't care too much about your feelings, he's going to really put the squeeze on you and say, you've got to share your faith this year. You've got to share your faith. And I don't think guilt works at all in this department. Instead, I think encouragement works by simply saying, Lord, in my life, help me share my faith naturally through your power.

And I pray, Lord, that you would use my life and all of his craziness and weirdness to talk to people and to rub shoulders with people naturally day in and day out, whether it's at Starbucks or if it's out surfing at the beach or whether it's at work or whatever the situation is. Maybe it's in your family or maybe it's a neighbor. Or, Lord, use me in my natural place day in and day out to simply talk to people about how great my God is, to tell them the story of how Jesus changed your life and what he did for you in the cross and what your hope is for today and for the future.

And that's simply what I'm asking you to do today and what I'm sharing with you. More than ever, churches need to get out to be on mission. And I'm so grateful that you guys are doing it. And it's important that you do it through acts of mercy and kindness as well as to verbally tell people what it is, what it is about the hope within your heart that drives you to do these things.

So in the coming year, I know that Pastor Adam wants you as a church to not only be the hands and feet of Christ, but also be the voice of Jesus Christ in people's lives. So let's just take a moment. I'm going to ask you to bow your head. Close your eyes. I'm going to lead you in a little prayer, and then we're going to move into communion as we wrap this up.

I'd like for you to simply say, Lord God, here is the situation I'm wrestling with. This is the place that causes me to doubt you, the place where I'm frustrated, the place where I'm feeling pain, the place where I'm struggling. I just want to lay it before you, Lord Jesus. Don't be afraid to name it. And then I'd ask you to simply pray this prayer.

Lord, show me how you want to use this situation to advance your gospel in others' lives through me. Show me, Lord, how you can use my life in this particular situation and challenge to open doors for the gospel. And then here's the final part of the prayer. Lord, give me the willingness to talk to someone about you, to steer the conversation in a spiritual direction.

Father God, today we rejoice that we've had a time today to remember how great you are. And how awesome it is that you sent your son to die for us. And that through your spirit, Lord, we have this life that we experience in community and in you that you've made possible. Lord, this is just a foretaste of what we'll experience for eternity. And we praise you this morning as our king, our awesome God.

Lord, we do want to share this good news with others. And in the culture in which we live today, Lord, we're sometimes afraid. We wonder sometimes if we even have the answers or know how to articulate that. And Lord, we'd ask that you take away all fear and that you would move in our lives, as imperfect as they are, to point people to Jesus. And Lord, may we see all kinds of great stories unfolding as people come to know you as Lord and Savior through this fellowship of faith, through this community of believers.

And I ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Amen.