2 Timothy 4:1-5 Orders for the Mission

Notes
Transcript

Intro

If you want to win a war, everyone’s got to follow orders.
It’s true of any team.
Whether its sports, business, churches, or armies, everyone has to be pulling the same direction if they are going to get where they’re going.
If someone breaks rank and does whatever they think is best, what happens?
More than likely the whole thing breaks down.
There’s a strategy. A big picture of how everything needs to work for the mission to be a success.
And everybody has to play their part, because the victory of the mission depends on everybody doing their job.
Now this gets sanitized and watered down in a lot of churches today because we are so afraid of biblical masculinity, but we are in a war.
Not against flesh and blood. But against principalities and powers.
A spiritual war where souls hang in the balance.
And God has a plan for Great Commission victory.
He has a plan to disciple the nations, baptize them, and teach them to obey everything Christ commanded.
And because He is God, there’s nothing stopping it.
But that doesn’t mean, in his wisdom, God hasn’t given us a job to do to make it happen.
Every church, especially in the hard times, needs to be asking....

What are our marching orders? What is God given us to do? What’s His plan to finish the mission?

Its really very simple.

Jesus’ orders for His church are to preach the Word so that all people might be saved on the Day of Judgment.

That’s it. Preach the Word.
Well what does that look like? How do we all play our part so that the Great Commission will be a success?
In 2 Timothy 4:1-5 we see three characteristics of faithfully preaching the Word. Of finishing the missionChrist sent us to do.
To preach the Word and finish the Mission, our orders are to:
Preach the Word urgently
Preach the Word Faithfully
And preach the Word until the Mission is done.
Let’s start with verse 1 which tells us to preach the Word urgently...

I. Preach the Word Urgently

2 Timothy 4:1-2 “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the Word...
The first thing I want to draw your eye to in this passage is Paul’s command to preach the Word.
There are a total of nine, nine, commands in this passage but all of them, in some way, relate to this one.
This is the big flashing light. The thing Paul wants you to see most.
And its very simple. Our job is to preach the Word.
The Word, is the Word of God.
Now in this context the Word is first and foremost the Scriptures.
This is all coming on the tail end of Paul saying All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable.
But to feel the full impact of what Paul is saying here you need to zoom out a little bit. What do the Scriptures tell us?
The Bible is God’s Word. Its God’s revelation, God’s message to human beings that tells us who God is. How he is holy, righteous, just. Merciful, gracious, and loving.
It tells us who we are. People made in God’s image created to worship and glorify Him.
It reveals our sin, and how far we’ve fallen short of God’s glory.
And the Scriptures pull back the curtain to proclaim the good news that God saves sinners by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
We are talking about preaching the whole counsel of God’s Word as it is revealed and defined by the Scriptures. the Bible.
we are talking about preaching the whole counsel of God’s Word as it is revealed and defined by the Scriptures.
So the Word is Christian doctrine.
It is the good deposit entrusted to you (2 Timothy 1:14).
The faith delivered once for all to the saints (Jude 3).
Sound Doctrine (2 Timothy 1:13).
Its the Word of Truth (2 Timothy 2:15).
So God telling us to preach the Word, is God telling us to preach the good news of Jesus Christ and all of its implications that the Scriptures point to.
The whole Bible is about Christ.
When we preach the Law, the first five books of the Old Testament, we preach God’s promise to bring the seed of the Woman who would crush the head of the serpent and deliver his people from their sins.
We preach God’s commands and how far we’ve fallen short, condemned as lawbreakers worthy of judgment and in need of God’s grace.
When we preach the Historical books, we don’t just preach interesting tidbits of history. Fun Bible stories.
We preach the King, the Messiah, the One who would sit on David’s throne and save God’s people from their sin and make the blessings of God’s Kingdom a reality on earth.
In the Prophets, we preach the greater Moses, the True Prophet who would wash us clean and write God’s Law on our hearts.
In the Psalms and Writings we anticipate Christ. We sing and celebrate the blessed hope Jesus brings in delivering us from every enemy and bringing us near to worship God in Spirit and Truth.
The Gospels and Acts details the work of Christ. How he crushed the head of the serpent in his death on the cross and saved sinners once and for all by His grace.
The Epistles lay out the doctrine of all Christ accomplished in his death and resurrection and what it looks like for the Church, the True Israel of God, to live out the New Covenant in, through, and for the glory of His Name.
And Revelation proclaims Christ’s Kingdom. How he is King of kings and Lord of lords and he will conquer the nations either by breaking them with the Rod of His judgment or cutting them to the heart with the Sword of His Gospel bringing them to repentance.
The Scriptures all point to Jesus.
That is what it means to rightly handle the Word of Truth (2 Timothy 2:15).
We preach Christ. Always Christ and nothing but Christ.
He is the Word the world needs to hear.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1).
We cannot preach the Scriptures, the written Word of God, unless we preach Christ, the incarnate Word of God.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14).
We don’t preach moralism. Legalism. Cheap grace. Or Human Wisdom.
We preach Christ and him crucified (1 Cor 2:2). We preach the good news of the gospel which is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Rom. 1:16).
Paul’s command to preach the Word is a command to tell the world about the good news of Jesus Christ because without Christ, the world cannot be saved.
That’s why Paul sets up this command with a charge. A solemn warning. This is meant to motivate Timothy and drive him to preach the Word.
Paul says I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the Word.
So Paul charges Timothy in the presence of God and of Jesus Christ.
Literally In the presence of means before or in the sight of.
The idea here is that God and Jesus Christ themselves are both witnesses to Timothy’s ministry, and they will hold him accountable to preach the word.
And if Timothy wants to hear “Well done, good and faithful servant,” he will need to be faithful to preach and rightly handle the Word of Truth.
And then Paul focuses in on the witness of Christ specifically. He motivates Timothy by reminding him who Jesus is.
Timothy must preach the Word in the presence of Christ who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom.
Theologically, this is a reference to what we would call the threefold office of Christ. That Jesus is Messiah, the Anointed One. The Anointed Prophet, Priest, and King of God’s people.
He is the One who is to judge the living and the dead. This highlights Christ’s work as Prophet.
Jesus proclaims God’s Word and Law and he judges sin.
His appearing highlights Jesus’ work as our Great High Priest.
You might read that and immediately think of Christ’s glorious return.
But that word literally means to shine forth.
He used in in chapter 1 verse 10 when he said that God’s grace had been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel (2 Timothy 1:10).
But in Titus 2:13 he used it to talk about our blessed hope, the fullness of our salvation which we are waiting on until Christ returns.
So for Paul, Christ’s appearing, is Christ’s glory in saving sinners.
And that includes all of Christ’s saving work from his incarnation, death, burial, and resurrection, to his glorious return.
In his incarnation, Christ appeared in glory to offer himself as a holy sacrifice and pay for our sins and one day he will appear in glory again to bring us the fullness of that salvation.
He is our Great High Priest.
Finally, his Kingdom points to Christ as the King of kings who reigns over all things in perfect glory showering the blessing of his reign on the nations forever and ever and ever.
Now why does Paul do that? Why does he try to motivate Timothy to preach the Word by highlighting the threefold office of Christ?
Its because when you put these three together; Prophet, Priest, and King, what you get is Christ the One, True, Perfect Mediator.
You get the Christ, the One who, like Job longed for, can stand between us and God and lay a hand on us both (Job 9:33).
The GodMan who bridges the gap by his blood and makes peace reconciling sinful man to a holy God.
The way Paul writes this charge and how he focuses in on Christ and his work as our Mediator is meant to remind Timothy and us that there is no other name under heaven by which men must be saved (Acts 4:12).
Like Paul told Timothy in his first letter, there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all. (1 Timothy 2:5-6).
Here’s the big idea. Paul charged Timothy to preach the Word because Paul had a burden for the world to know Christ.
And Paul had a burden for the world to know Christ because Paul knew there was no other Mediator that could save.
He knew that on the Day of Judgment Christ would judge the living and the dead. And everyone that does not have their faith in Him will be condemned in their sins, doomed to suffer God’s righteous and eternal wrath.
This is why I said we need to preach the word urgently.
The language Paul uses when he says Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead suggests an imminency to this judgment.
That its just about to happen.
And you might say, its been 2000 years since Paul wrote this. How can he say its about to happen?
Hebrews 9:27 it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.
Everyone gets one shot in this life. And the moment we die its all over.
And if we really believe what Scripture says that life is a vapor, that means for every single person we are on the doorstep of the Great White Throne of Judgment.
And God even tells us what that will look like.
Revelation 20:11-15 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.
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And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
Here’s how this is going to work.
At the end of history every person that has ever lived will stand before Christ on the Throne for judgment.
And when someone stands before the throne a book will be opened. And it will be a book about their life.
And that book, without exception, will prove that every single person that has ever lived is a sinner deserving of God’s holy and righteous wrath.
Imagine that, a book where not a year, month, hour, minute, or even second has gone unnoticed.
But there will be another book. The Book of Life. And in this book is a list of names written before the foundation of the world.
And if anyone’s name is in that book, they are forgiven through faith in Christ.
The book of their life doesn’t list sin, after sin, after sin.
Every page is stained red with blood where you can’t even read a single line.
There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).
There is no judgment. No wrath. No guilt.
Every single one of our sins is paid for in full by Christ.
He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:5-6).
And praise God. Praise God that in His love and mercy he made a way for us giving his only Son as a sacrifice on our behalf.
But if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
That is the plight of the lost. They dead in their trespasses and sins condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God (Eph 2:1, John 3:18).
But how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? (Romans 10:14).
Do we have that burden and that urgency?
Do we really believe Christ is the only Mediator between God and men?
That he is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him? (John 14:6).
If we did, we would give all of our lives to preach Christ and him crucified because every single person will die eternally without him.
But here’s the beauty of this. I don’t think the judgment of Christ is meant to motivate us to preach the Word out of a sense of guilt.
Where we say, well I guess I better because they are going to go to hell if I don’t.
I think Paul felt this burden and passed on this burden out of a sense of faith.
That preaching the Word would bring glory to Christ because, yes, Christ is our Judge, but he is also our Advocate.
That means we preach the Word in hope knowing there is no doubt that every single person that believes in Christ, the Judge himself will say Justified. Righteous. Holy. Forgiven.
Case Dismissed.
We must remember our accountability to God and the burden of the Judgment of Christ and preach the Word urgently.
Second we must...

II. Preach the Word Faithfully

2 Timothy 4:2-4 Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
So you’ll notice there are four commands after Preach the Word that define what it means to preach the word faithfully.
Then in verse 3, Paul gives a reason why Timothy needs to preach the Word as faithfully as he can.
So what does it look like to preach the Word faithfully?
Skipping over be ready in season and out of season for a moment, Paul says reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching.
This describes what we are to do when we preach Christ.
Reprove means to expose, convict, or correct.
Its the idea of bringing the Word to bear on someone’s life and showing them their sin or false doctrine.
Its bringing conviction. Its saying here is what God says and here’s how we are out of step.
Closely related to that is rebuke.
This is the idea that we warn someone of their sin, and call them to repentance.
We don’t only reprove sin and expose it, we rebuke sin and call people to put it to death.
So reproving is, from Scripture, showing someone the sinfulness of sin. Rebuking is showing someone the sinfulness of the sinner.
And then exhort.
This means to encourage. Urge. Implore. Spur on. Admonish.
So we Reprove: we call out sin and name it what it is.
We Rebuke: We call out the sinner and urge them to repent.
And we Exhort: We call them in repentance to put their faith in Christ.
Do you see how this is still tied up with the judgment idea? We preach Christ and him crucified so people might turn from their sin and be saved.
And we are to do that with complete patience and teaching.
So yes, while we are to have a burden and urgency to preach the Word and a longing for people to know Christ, that doesn’t give us permission then to resort to human manipulation or a distortion of the message.
Our goal is not to close someone and get them to make a decision or pray a prayer by any means necessary.
Our goal is to preach the Word. That’s our only responsibility. To show them their sin, call them to repentance, and urge them to trust in Christ.
It is the Holy Spirit’s job to save them. To give them the new birth.
Jesus said no one can see the Kingdom of God unless they are born from above.
And when he was asked how can someone be born again, Jesus said The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit (John 3:8).
The New Birth is not in any person’s power to do. Every single time someone is saved from their sin to follow Christ, it is a powerful work of God’s amazing grace.
That’s why we must be patient and stay faithful to teach sound doctrine.
Not only do we need to rely on the Holy Spirit because we don’t have the power to save anyone with our eloquence, reasoning, or wisdom, but we must be patient and stay faithful because there will come times when people are so hard to God’s grace the will refuse to hear it.
Paul said for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching.
When Paul says for the time is coming, the word time is the word καιρὸς which means time as in a season or age.
But this isn’t the first time Paul used this word in 2 Timothy.
All the way back in 2 Timothy 3:1 Paul said there will come times of difficulty. Hard seasons.
It’s the same word.
And, in chapter 3, Paul said what makes seasons hard.
People will be lovers of self, lovers of money, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness but denying its power (2 Timothy 3:2-5).
Hard seasons are times in church history where counterfeit Christianity and false teaching and run rampant.
Where people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
We could not have a more fitting word for our day. How did we get here? How did we get to this point in our culture where it feels like everything is falling apart?
This is it.
People, having itching ears, have accumulated for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.
The word passions is the word Paul uses for sinful desires.
So what he’s saying is people didn’t want the truth.
They couldn’t stand it. Bear with it. Tolerate it.
That’s what he means when he says people will not endure sound teaching.
The time will come when people will not stand to listen to a single word of sound teaching. A single word of God’s Word.
Of Christ and him crucified along with all that it means to worship Him alone.
Their ears itch. They want their sin and they want someone to scratch that itch by telling them God says its ok and so they heap up, or gather together as many false teachers as they can that will give them permission to reject God’s Word and have their sin.
That’s how false teaching works. All false teaching is is telling sinful people exactly what they want to hear.
By the way, that’s a good cheat sheet for figuring out who’s a false teacher and who’s not. Who’s out there saying the same thing the world says with a little Jesus sprinkled in?
Who’s twisting God’s Word to soften sin and make it just a little bit more respectable?
Its how false prophets have always itched the ears of sinful people.
Isaiah 30:9-11 For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the Lord; who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.
Stop telling us about God. Let us have our sin.
That’s why Paul calls all false teaching and all false religions myths.
Myths are man made fairy tales that try to give significance and meaning to our lives here and now. To inspire us to virtue and the good life. But call em what you want, they’re still made up stories.
This is a jab at false teaching.
When Paul calls false doctrine silly myths in 1 Timothy 4:7 what he’s saying is that false religion, false doctrine, false teaching of any kind whether its heretical Christianity or worldly wisdom is just a bunch of made up nonsense.
Fairy tales. Lies. And people buy it because they are lovers of sin rather than lovers of God.

Application

Here’s the basic idea. There is no neutrality.
You will either have God’s Word, his truth, his blessing, or you will have man made myths, lies, sin, and all the blessing they can bring which is to say not very much.
You can’t turn away from God’s Word and expect everything to just be fine.
You will have Christ or Chaos. Truth or Lies.
God created us to worship Him and to live all of our lives to please him by living according to his will.
Just because our nation stopped worshiping God doesn’t mean we stopped being worshipers.
What do you think is actually happening right now? Why do you think our nation is tearing apart at the seams?
People are serving their gods. And we are finding that out the hard way right now.
The reason why CRT and LGBTQ+ Equality, and ProChoice under the guise of Women’s rights are getting shoved down your throat at your job, down your kids throat at school, and down your families throat in every commercial you see on TV is because our nation has turned away from Christ wandered off into the pagan temple of Social Justice.
The reason why some of have lost your jobs, why Medical tyranny is accepted on a corporate and federal level, and why people are losing their minds over masked and unmasked, vaxxed and unvaxxed, is because their god Science demands it.
He will save them from death, and when people outside of Christ are slaves to the fear of death like the Bible says, that god is a lifeline. They need him. He can save them.
And ultimately, both of these gods are just servants of the actual god our nation worships. The State. The Government. He is all powerful. Almighty. His word is law. Whatever he says goes. Why?
Because when you don’t worship Jesus as King of kings and Lord of lords, you still need to worship the highest authority in the room.
And when there is no God, and we’ve evolved from a single celled organism by random chance, and this is all that there is, the highest authority is man collective. Its government.
This is why you see more and more people embracing communism, socialism, marxism, whatever you want to call it, all it is is a false religion where the State is sovereign and provides for all our needs, gives us our identity, and promises to save us from this hell and bring us into a utopian kingdom.
There is nothing new under the Sun. Its the Tower of Babble all over again.
Man has rejected God, turned away from the truth and wandered off into myths.
That’s why Paul charged us to preach the Word.
This is why I held off on be ready in season and out of season.
You’ve probably heard that interpreted as Always be ready to share the gospel. Don’t be caught off guard. Always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is in you.
Whether its convenient or inconvenient, preach the Word.
And all of that is true. But I think there’s something deeper here.
The root word of in season and out of season is καιρὸς.
So I think what Paul is saying is be ready to preach the Word in the seasons you are in.
Be ready, urgent, zealous to bring the Word of God to bear on the world and every single aspect of life here and now.
The Word is a sword, and God calls us to wield it against the false gods and myths of our culture to bring all things into submission to Christ.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.
The lie Satan wants us to believe is that if we just put our heads down all this will just blow over.
Brothers and sisters the reason this is happening us cause the church has been putting its head down.
We’ve limited the Lordship of Christ to in here, instead of all authority in heaven and on earth.
Let me put it to you like this. The culture is just a reflection of the church’s faithfulness to the Great Commission. Of our faithfulness to preach the Word and make disciples who obey everything Jesus commanded.
That’s why Paul’s answer to theses hard times is preach the Word. Apply it to the season you’re in. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with all patience and teaching.
Politics are not going to fix this mess. Time or better laws cannot put everything back together. This is a spiritual war.
And if we want to change the world by God’s grace and the power of the gospel, its going to happen one heart at a time.
We should not look around us at what’s happening in the world and lament. We should look around and get to work.
But we will need complete patience and teaching, because the wind blows where it wishes.
We can’t save anyone and we can’t usher in the Kingdom.
That’s God’s job. God has his purposes for everything that’s happening right now and the days of this season are set under his providential hand.
But we still preach the gospel in hope because we know God loves to save sinners.
And all the patience God is showing our nation right now is proof that God doesn’t wish any person to perish, but all to reach repentance through faith in Christ (2 Peter 3:9).
Preaching the Word faithfully means we preach Christ even when the world hates us for it. Even when the world stops up their ears to follow after myths.
We preach Christ because he is the Savior of the world, and he alone has the power to save.
Finally, number three, and this is quick, we must...

III. Preach the Word until the Mission is Finished

2 Timothy 4:5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
These are Paul’s last ministry focused instructions for Timothy.
And Paul’s driving concern is that Timothy would fulfill his ministry by preaching the Word, always being sober-minded, enduring suffering, and doing the work of an evangelist.
Being sober-minded is not a command against drunkeness although we shouldn’t get drunk.
In the NT this command is always figurative.
It’s a command to be spiritually sober, self-controlled, holy.
Listen to how Peter said it. 1 Peter 1:13-16 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
In a word, this command is to live for God and his Kingdom. To live holy lives, but also to not be distracted by the things of this world. To remember we have a mission and serve the Kingdom as best as we can, wherever God has placed us.
That’s why we also must endure suffering. We’ve talked about this in other sermons, but the Great Commission is hard work.
We suffer and sacrifice. We deny ourselves. And sometimes we get persecuted for it.
But we must never stop. Must never shrink back. Endure faithfully and persevere to the end.
Then Paul says do the work of an evangelist.
I love this, because I think this can be really helpful for most of us.
In Ephesians 4 an Evangelist is one of Christ’s gift to the church. You have apostles, prophets, evangelists and shepherd-teachers or pastors.
I think a lot of us struggle to share the gospel with family, friends, coworkers, and total strangers, because we feel like we don’t have the gift of evangelism.
Let me encourage you, you probably don’t.
But what does Paul say? He doesn’t say Timothy be an evangelist. He says do the work of an evangelist.
What is that? Literally, an evangelist is someone who brings good news.
All it means is to tell someone the good news that God saves sinners solely by his grace, not by their works, through faith in Jesus Christ who died and rose again to pay for their sins and give them eternal life.
None of us might be an evangelist or have the gift of evangelism, but we can surely do the work of one!
All Paul is commanding Timothy here is make sharing the good news your life’s work.
Spread it abroad. Look for opportunities to tell someone about Jesus and then leave the rest in God’s hands.
And listen, if you’re a real Calvinist, God’s going to save them anyway, so there’s no possible way you can mess it up.
And finally, fulfill your ministry.
In other words fully and completely carry out what God has given you to do. Be as faithful as you possibly can.
This is why we must preach the Word until the mission is finished. Jesus said make disciples of all nations.
Fulfill your ministry. Until that day comes, every single church and every single Christian still has a job to do.

Conclusion

What Paul is saying in these closing commands is one basic idea.
In difficult days, when false teaching abounds and it looks like people refuse to listen, don’t get discouraged. Don’t lose hope. Don’t give up.
Don’t change the message to itch the ears of the World.
Preach the word. Preach it urgently, faithfully, and until the mission is done.
The harder times get and the deafer the people are the more necessary the gospel is.

Jesus has sent His Church to preach the Word so that all people might be saved on the Day of Judgment.

Are we living in light of eternity and doing everything we can to make our lives count for something greater than ourselves?
Are we carrying out our orders for the mission?
Wherever God has placed you, preach the Word. Bring it to bear. On your life. Your families life. Our church. And the world around us.
We must be patient, and trust God knows what he is doing.
We don’t save the world. God does.
And sometimes before doing that, he lets people come to an end of themselves.
Wander off into myths to show them their broken cisterns don’t hold any water, and if they are thirsty, they must come to Christ the fountain of living waters.
The fountain who says I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. 7 The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. Re 21:6–7.

Let’s Pray

Scripture Reading

Col 1:24-29 “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.”
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