God's Mission in Christ - Ephesians 1:3-10 - October 4, 2026

Matthew Poole: Good morning, church. And if you're a guest with us this morning, praise God for you too. Mission partners, it is a joy to have you here this morning. You are a unique encouragement in the gospel. You are an embodied reminder that our God is on the throne and that he is advancing his mission through his church. Praise God for your witness. You're an encouragement to everyone else here in this room to keep. going. So thank you. Let's pray as we get into God's word this morning. Pray with me. Heavenly Father We bow before you Humbled by your grace and your glory. We also bow because we are desperate, Lord. We we don't come with what we need in our own hands. We we come with empty hands this morning. And we ask for help. We need help this morning to see you. God, we cannot make our hearts treasure your Son. We cannot make our eyes and the eyes of our faith behold Christ. We cannot in our own strength comprehend the glories of Christ. We do not have the strength to lay down our lives for your glory either, God. So we come and we just lay ourselves before you in prayer, acknowledging our absolute insufficiency before your sufficiency. This morning and this time, God, through this word, through your word, God, would you transform us as a people? Do spiritual, real spiritual work right here this morning in this room. Transform us as we behold your son Jesus. And will we be a people unleashed for his glory here in Kerry and among the nations? And it's in your name that we pray. Amen. When you think of missions, maybe international missions or just missions period, what are the thoughts and images and feelings that come to your mind? Maybe this morning you're already having those things come to your mind because we have missionaries here. And maybe you are some in this room that get immediately excited. And you have the prayer prompts and you have the prayer cards, you know all of our missionary partners, you're in it to win it. You're dialed into the mission of God. You are pumped that today is about missions. Then there's other others of us in this room, and maybe the majority. That speaking and talking and fixating on missions might produce not excitement, but a bit of anxiety. A bit of burden. Like, okay, here's another opportunity for me to feel bad about myself. Not doing enough for King Jesus, I should do more. Or maybe for you, the the mission of God is it's just super irrelevant. It's for the professionals out there, it's it's not for me. It's irrelevant, it's a kill joy, not interested, brings burden and anxiety. This morning we have an opportunity for God to do work in our hearts. I would put myself right in that same category. I think we all in some way need help here. Because our hearts don't naturally gravitate to the glory of God among the nations, do they? You wake up with a heart that's just bursting with joy and song and a life ready to lay itself down for the glory of God. I don't wake up that way. But God intends to transform us into that type of people. The issue is the problem is we have something in us called sin. In our fallen flesh, we don't desire the glory of God, we desire the glory of self. We want self-glory. And if self-glory is what we are after, then the mission of God is an interruption. It's an obstacle. Because the two are opposed to one another. And what happens when we fixate on ourselves is all kinds of problems. You know this to be true. Your life does not go well when all you're thinking about is yourself. So, this message this morning, what God intends to do in our hearts, is not a killjoy. He's releasing us from the prison and the misery of self-occupation. Our world gets so small. When all we're doing is thinking about ourselves. How how do we get out of it? How do we get out of this sin that's got us bent inward? Our very nature is bent inward and and we're hostile to the glory of God. So so what do we do? We need to lay ourselves before God and let his word transform our hearts. And praise God. That's what he does. If you're coming in here this morning and you could care less about the glory of God, take heart. God is in the business of transforming hostile hearts and unleashing them for his glory. That's what he does. He delights to do that. And so our track this morning. What I hope to do, what I hope I can show the scriptures to do, what God can do this morning, is to get our eyes off of our Maybe the best thing that can happen this morning is you get out of your story and you get on to another one. A bigger one and a better one. And one that will actually release you to experience all the joy and freedom you could possibly imagine. It's like an archery. If you're trying to aim at a target and you pull back that bow, if all you're doing is is looking at your hand, you will miss the bullseye every single time. No archery coach will tell you to do that. Get your technique right, but then where are you looking? You're aiming your gaze at the bullseye. You watch those Olympian archery. Folks, they're just locked in. Their sights are locked in on the target. So the goal this morning for me, and I think what Paul's goal is in Ephesians, is to get our eyes off of ourselves and get them on where they belong. On King Jesus. And if we can do that, I think mission will take care of itself. Okay, so this is where we're going. Let's open up to Ephesians 1. Paul begins. In verse 3, he says this blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He opens up his, he's done his little greeting and he opens right now with praise. He can't stop himself. First word out of his mouth: Blessed be this God. Praise him. That's what this letter is about. That's what this gospel is about. The blessing of God, the our father. God and Father of what? Of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us. Blessed be God who has blessed us. Where has he blessed us? In Christ with what? Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Praise God. I could stop the sermon right there. You have every blessing in the heavenly places because of Christ Jesus. No Christian needs to have FOMO. It's not a spiritual reality. Your spiritual reality is you have everything that could be given you. Right? We're not opening magazines that come in the mail or searching, seeing on your Instagram feed or whatever, and you just see, they have that, they have that, and you're just jealous, you're covetous, you're coveting other things, you want other things. That doesn't exist for the Christian if we rightly understand, understand what God has done. There is no blessing that exists that is not yours in Christ Jesus. And then we might say, well, okay, so we have it all. Well, surely, surely, it's because I did something to get it. I earned it somehow. Some way, somehow, it's probably because I'm good. Paul puts a stop to that thinking real quick. Verse four. Every blessing is given to us. Verse four, even as he chose us, in him. in Christ before the foundation of the world. That we should be holy and blameless before Him. Who of us in this room was around then, before the foundation of God? But you were in God's mind. God was thinking about you by name. By name Jim, John, Maria. Right. Putting my grace on you. I am choosing you to be holy and blameless before me. This absolutely strips us from any possible way we could take any credit for anything. Zero merit. We're not around to give merit, we're not around to do anything. Much less born into sin and in our transgressions. God has chosen us by his free, sovereign grace. We don't add anything to it. And we don't cause it. We're not the first cause of anything here. He is kind and he is gracious to choose us to his glory and his glory alone. And Paul continues in love. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to. Purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. So there's missional language all over this. If you're asking, what is God up to? It's right here. This is what God Almighty is up to. The purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, blessing a people in the beloved. So when God was thinking about you before the foundation of the world, He was doing it in love. There was love. He had love for you, and he's blessing you in the beloved. That's in his son Jesus, the second person of the Trinity. You're found in him and you're adopted into this relationship. Adoption into Christ, considered the highest privilege we can have as Christians. As J.I. Packer talks about, justification legally made right before God. that's that's good. That is great, but ain't nothing to the relationship of being adopted in Christ and having the full affection of the Father over you. This morning, if you are in Christ, the full pleasure of God reigns over you. And that can never change. There's always some sort of gap that we might feel. If if I asked you, how how much joy, how much delight, how much love does the father have for the son? You say, Well, a lot. He's perfect. He's the Son of God. And then if I were asked you, how much love does the Father and how much delight does the Father have in you, what would you say? By a little bit lower, right? A little bit lower than the affection that the Father has for the Son. That's anti-Bible thinking. That's not biblical thinking. The Bible says the same delight the Father has on the Son is the same delight the Father has on you. Reconciled sinner, weak, struggling sinner, he sings over you. There's eternal love stamped upon you. He's not ashamed of you. He's not sad about you or sorry about you. He sings over you. He loves you like Jesus because you're in Jesus. This leads to the praise of his glorious grace. So it's not even at the end of the mission of God is not just that love comes to us. It's routing, it's being routed somewhere, and it's to this to the praise of Of his glorious grace. God's mission is the glory of his son. And the glory of the Son comes as people rejoice in his love. Rejoice in his grace. The glory of his grace. The full, free, unmerited favor of God that's been given to us. We say praise God because of that. We say praise God. That's exactly how God has designed it. That's how Jesus is getting glory. Paul continues, verse 7: In Him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses. Just moving into history here. We see that the grace might be free to us, but it is anything but free to God. Expensive to God. Infinitely expensive. Redemption comes through what? Blood of the Sun. This is the unspeakable reality of the gospel. That son, not talking about us at this point. We're sinners hostile to God, right? At enmity with God, but the son of God. Fully righteous, eternity past, that one who has the love of God forever stamped upon him. That's the one. That goes and sheds blood. To forgive people like us. Us who wicked, rebellious, as Ephesians two would talk about, we are dead, and we're following the course of this world, the prince of the power of the air, we're children of rabbit. That's who we are apart from Christ. But Christ, the Son of God, takes wrath that we deserved and absorbs every last. The check doesn't bounce back. It clears in the resurrection. It's paid in full. That's why when we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we we we raise the glass. This is the glass, the cup that Jesus drank, the wrath of God. We get to drink the cup of blessing. Unreal. Unreal. He continues all of this, some of the same themes going on, according to the riches of his grace. We've been forgiven, redemption is blood, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, more mission language, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time. To unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth in Him. I mean, we are just swallowed up here in an ocean of the grace and the love of God. Just swallowed up, lavished with grace. There's not an end to it. You can't count it, you can't put it in a bucket. You you cannot get to the end of it. Where sin abounds, grace abounds. There's just more and more and more goodness to have be had. I think of the family size of the MM family size bag where you just you don't even have to worry about how many MMs you're gonna take. You just go in and take. There's always more left. The grace of God is like that. It's just never ending, but he gives us this panoramic vision from eternity past to eternity future, all things decreed to the glory of the grace of Jesus to the blessing of his people. What a vision. And this, when everything is united in him, this is the whole new order, the new heavens and the new earth where there is no more fracture. There was fracture in the Garden of Eden. Fracture between God and man, man and man, man and creation, fracture in the in the cosmos. Everywhere, fracture. Everything is being reconciled in Jesus Christ. A new heavens and a new earth is coming on the basis of divine blood that's been shed. To give us the fullness of peace and shalom with God. Perfect harmony. That's coming, church. Believer, that's coming. Unbeliever, that's what you're being invited into this morning. But listen, listen to the repetition of the in him language and what we just read. I don't want you to miss God's Christ centered mission here. Verse three blessed us in Christ. Verse four chose us in Christ. Him verse 5 adopted in Jesus Christ. Verse 6, grace blessed us in the beloved. Verse 7, in him is redemption and forgiveness. Verse 9, the plan set forth in Christ to unite all things. Verse 10 in heaven and earth. In him. In Christ. Does God care about Jesus? Absolutely. Is his mission centered on Jesus? Absolutely. It's the plan of God. What's our response? Joy. Praise. Praise. We worship. He's won our hearts. And we worship him, and it is not a burden. It is a glad response. And that magnifies and glorifies Christ. This is how Jonathan Edwards puts it, the theologian of the 1700s, he says this: God is glorified. Not only by his glory being seen, but by his by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart. God is magnifying his name by you rejoicing in it. He's not asking you to do anything else. That is, by faith we are treasuring the gift of Christ Jesus. How good is that? Praise God. So my question this morning is this do you have joy in Christ? Do you have joy in Christ? Or are you finding your joy in other things? Maybe you're an unbeliever this morning and you've never experienced the joy of Christ. This morning would you see that there is a joy in him dying for you and being raised to new life to give you life and joy forever? The joys that you're tasting in this life, they will ruin you. They will end in this life. And then it's suffering. God is offering you a joy this morning. It's beyond anything this world can offer. And if you are a believer, how's your joy in Christ doing? Have we been cultivating that joy? Or are we losing our sights of the glory of God? And we're getting a little bit too comfortable with the joys of this world. When's the last time you've been excited for God? Actually praised Him. Not here in a worship service. At home, in the car, taking joy and delight in God. If we don't get this right, our mission is gonna malfunction every single time. We have no business talking about mission if we don't get this. It will the mission will be about the self. It won't be about God if we don't understand what he's doing and we don't actually have delight in him and in Christ. So our mission, it's gonna flow from God's mission. And we see here, God's mission is a Christ-centered mission. So now I'm gonna assume that for the rest of this message. I'm not arguing for that, but I want to ask this question. What does it mean? What does it then mean for us to live a Christ-centered mission, live on a Christ-centered mission, to participate in this? And so I've got three points this morning. The first is this. A Christ centered mission, witnesses to the gospel. A Christ centered mission, witnesses to the gospel. In verse nine, we see that the purpose, all that we just talked about, was made known to us. It was made known. That is, it didn't just like we didn't just come up with it. It was made known, it was revealed, it was shared. Or we would see later in chapter 1, verse 13 of Ephesians, Paul says, In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him. There was a hearing of the gospel. That's how it was made known. You heard. You heard. And if we fast forward to chapter 3, verse 8, Paul says this. Paul's preaching. He's making known all of that blessing that. The mountaintop vistas of blessing that we just went through, all of that is nothing until it's made known through the preaching of the gospel. You don't have access to that until you hear the gospel word. We are witnesses to the gospel. This was Paul's heartbeat. I have resolved to know nothing among you except Christ and Him crucified. I have delivered to you of first importance what I also received that Christ died in accordance with the scriptures for your sins and he rose again from the dead according to the scriptures. This is the message. This is the message, the glory and the grace of Jesus. Paul is preaching, we are commissioned to preach. And I think it's appropriate here to consider this fact if you are a believer here this morning. You have joy in Christ because someone was faithful to share. You have infinite joy in Christ because someone was faithful. Praise God. Yes, God chose you before the foundation of the world, but he operates through means, through people. Jesus has told us to be his witnesses and somebody, year after year after year, people have been speaking the gospel, and it has traveled to your ears and to my ears here in 2026. Praise God, how beautiful are the feet that bring good news. Do you have somebody you can think about? This beautiful feet in your life. They brought you good news. You don't have to be condemned. You don't have to be ashamed. There's forgiveness for sins. Christ has died. Christ has risen. This is the beautiful message of peace that's being published and given and proclaimed to all people. And we are then picking that up and we are becoming those beautiful feet. It is our glad responsibility to be beautiful feet of peace to a world that knows nothing but wrath and hostility. Who are you being beautiful feet to? We witness to the person and work of Christ. We are a people of the gospel first and foremost. There's a lot of things that we could give ourselves to as individuals and as a church and as pastors. You know what we have to work really hard to do? Give ourselves to this. Because the distractions are countless. My primary job is not to be your life coach. Or to help navigate situations in life as caring as all that can be. My primary job before God is to be a witness to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And your primary job is not to be a plumber or an architect or whatever else you do. As important as that may be, it is that in sight of the grand the grand privilege of testifying to the death. And the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are witnesses. We witness not to ourselves. We this is not about how great we are. Far from we should not be confused. We are witnessing to someone else. His person, his work. Continue. So Christ in admission witnesses to the gospel. Christ in her mission is for the joy of all nations. Verse nine. And to bring to light, continuing in chapter three. This is Paul. For everyone. For everyone. What is the plan of the mystery? Hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that He has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, to bring to light to everyone. God is no tribal deity, He is a God of the nations, He is a God of the whole earth. It's always been designed to be that. It's the way he set it up with Adam and Eve. Be fruitful, multiply. They failed miserably. He tries again after Noah. Be fruitful and multiply. Failure. And he chooses Abraham and the family. You're going to be blessed so that you'd be a blessing to all the nations on earth. He's not stopping his plan to be a gl to set up a global kingdom. He's just choosing one family to do it in. And matter of fact, as we trace the Old Testament, is the family of Abraham and the Jews, are they are they faithful? No way. Failure. The promise was never to come through the family in that way, it's through the one offspring. That was even promised back in Genesis 3:15. Jesus. The only true Israelite, the only true missionary, the only true one that can bring about the blessing of God to the nations. That's the whole point. In the fullness of time, this is what is happening: the mystery that Paul can't get over. Through this one, blessing is coming to the whole world. Jew and Gentile. One family. Right? Hostility between those people, gone. Hostility between those people and God, gone. Washed by the blood of the Lamb. For us, as we consider this, no one is off limits for the gospel. No one is off limits for the gospel. And we don't there's no pride here that we can possibly take. We remember, Paul even encourages in Ephesians, we remember we were the Gentiles. Unless you're a Jew in this room, you were far off. That's his point. We are the far off ones. Without God, without hope in the world, like lost. And yet God has done a work through Jesus Christ. And we know how this joy then is moving. So we've been satisfied by Christ, we're treasure Christ, and this joy is now moving to the nations. And I want to just pick up the way that God has wired joy to work by a simple illustration of how I fell in love with cookies and cream ice cream. When I first tasted cookies and cream ice cream, I never ordered vanilla again. What a waste of money. What a Pitiful opportunity. Opportunity lost. Right? This is the expulsive power of a new affection. You taste that, and you're like, all right, I'm done. I'm done with the world. Taste and see that the Lord is good. But then what's the next thing you do? You proclaim it. It's so good. You gotta try it. You gotta try it. If you not, if not, you bother me. You bother me that you order vanilla. There must be something wrong with you. You have not tasted what I have tasted. You know this to be true. It's how joy works. The last movie you saw, or vacation you took, or promotion you had, or gadget you got, or whatever it is, if it gave you a sense of happiness and joy, you likely shared it. It's actually hard not to share it. Like God has hardwired that in us. It maximizes our joy to share it. We're capped. Ar joyus cap so long as we kip it to ourselves. We are jealous for the nation's joy, but we are also jealous for Christ's glory. And these are not at odds. Psalm 97, we would cry with the psalmist. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy. That's not gladness anywhere. That's not songs about just anything. They are songs to Christ Jesus. Let them be glad. Our heart cry is more people. More nations taking joy in Jesus, glorifying Jesus. It's as John Piper says, missions exist because worship doesn't. We're trying to get people into this joy. It's not a burdensome mission. And we're not trying to be a kill joy to people. We're saying, hey, this is the party. This is the party you should come to. Okay, so let me ask you this: Are you okay if no one else experiences the joy of Christ? Are you okay with You feel you have a place to play in that, or is it just somebody else's responsibility? Or are you okay with the level of worship of Christ in the world right now? Or do you want more worship of Christ? Does he deserve more worship? Do you want him magnified? God is pushing us this direction. There is joy for us. And you might say, okay, where do I start? Real briefly, I want to give you a quick tool. I don't have much time to go through this, but I want you to see it. We'll send out some stuff later on it. It's a tool developed by Dave and John Ferguson. Bless. It's an acronym. So where do you get started in this great big cosmic plan? Break it down. Nations, all this madness. What can I do? B. Begin with prayer. It's very simple. Maybe you start a list of people you run into that don't know Jesus, where you live, work, learn, where you play, make a list of them and start praying for them. Three, four, five people. Or maybe you're not even there yet. So begin with this prayer. God, break my heart for you. Break my heart. I'm cold towards it. I'm cold towards your glory. I'm cold towards unbelievers. Would you break my heart and give me compassion? Give me your compassion. And then, L, listen. Ask people questions and listen to their stories. It's one of the simplest ways you can love people. Our world is starved to talk and have somebody listen to them. I mean, people are doing that to robots. Who can't love them back? What an opportunity it is to just ask. I know it's hard. People are going on and on and on about their stories. But this is mission. This is incarnational living. So we listen, get their story, then eat. Eat with them. Meals have power. We've been talking about that in the Last Supper in John. Such power and opportunity in meals. And then S serve. Serve them practically. Find something simple that you can do. Mow the yard, send a card, a gift card, whatever. And finally share. We're aiming at getting to a point where we have some trust and some currency to share our story and God's story with them. Hopefully connecting it to their story, what God's doing in their life. So bless. It's a tool I'd recommend. And then last thing here. There's a tool, great. Billions of people, millions of people that don't know Jesus. Like the task is overwhelming. And here's the last thing I want us to point to. A Christ-centered mission is a confident mission. A Christ-centered mission is a confident mission. Because we can have all the tools in the world. But we're looking at ourselves going, man, we're we're not an impressive bunch of people. We're weak. We're broken. We're not strong. We don't have the resources of the world. But yet, God says we can be confident. The first place we take our confidence is in the sovereignty of God. I hope if you saw or in if in Ephesians three through ten and even continues through the Holy Spirit through to fourteen, there is there any shadow of doubt that any of that's not going to be completed? mean Paul Paul doesn't even open the it isn't the the door's not even there to open. He decrees it. Before the foundations of the world, there's going to be a people forever enjoying the grace and the glory of my son Jesus and a new heavens and new earth. It's happening. He decrees it. The scriptures also testify this. Jesus in Luke 24 says, You will be my witnesses. Like it's not optional. You will be. I will cause you to be. The scriptures must be fulfilled, that the gospel is going to the ends of the earth. God will see to it that it does. We also see in Ephesians 1.11, he works all things after the counsel of his will. All things. Everything. It's working towards this end. He's got a plan. He's working to the end of the glory of Christ. Matthew 28, great commission. How does Jesus start that? All authority has been given to me. All authority, not some of it. Not partial authority, but all authority. Absolute supremacy. There's no one to the left or right of Jesus. Above it all, he rules over everything. He's got all the authority, and so that lets us know mission for God is not a gamble. God's not gambling, God's not rolling the dice and hoping this works. He's not doing. And if he's not doing it, we don't need to do that. It's it's a risk-free thing. There's actually guarantee here. You weren't an accident. And neither is the next person God's gonna reach for his glory. We take our confidence in the sovereignty of God also in confidence in the grace and the power of God. What I mean by this is your sin struggle and your shame and your weakness and your suffering do not disqualify you from the mission of God. Hear me. They do not disqualify you from the mission of God. Satan would love for you to think that they do. God is saying, Let me magnify my grace through you. So it's Paul's plea, like get this thorn away from me. Jesus is very clear to Paul. Paul, my grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect through weakness. We never sinned that grace may abound, but here's the thing. Our weakness is in some way Qualify us. We're not going in our own strength. We're going into the strength of God. Like this is the point. It's like literally Paul's whole argument in 2 Corinthians. Y'all are all looking at these other guys that have all this strength, and you're thinking that I'm not an apostle because I got sufferings and beatings and I'm not impressive. He's like, it's the very thing that qualifies me as an apostle of Jesus Christ. May we not look to our shame and cause it cause us to tucktail and run and get off the playing field. God wants to magnify his grace through you. Every weakness, right? I mean, this is just his plan. This is how he's chosen to do it. The gospel going forward to the ends of the earth is not a story about a strong people. It's a story about a strong Savior. We might feel like we're on the struggle bus this morning, but Jesus is driving. He's taking us to glory. And we will get there. And there will be a host of others to come along with it. God is sovereign, God is gracious. There is no risk if we give our lives to this mission. I want to close with a story from not a story, an account from historian Albert Barnes. It's a little bit lengthy of a quote, so bear with me, but I love it. It's one of my favorite quotes. As we're looking at the grace and the sovereignty of God to do for us what we can. He says this: Within the space of 30 years after the death of Christ, the gospel had been carried to all parts of the civilized and to no small portion of the uncivilized world. It had been preached in the most splendid, powerful, and corrupt cities. Churches were already founded in Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, and at Rome. The gospel had spread in Arabia, Asia Minor, Greece, Macedon, Italy, and Africa. It had assailed the strongest existing institutions. It had made its way over the most formidable barriers. It had encountered the most deadly and malignant opposition. It had traveled to the capital of Rome and had secured such a hold, even in the imperial city, as to make it certain that it would finally overturn. The established religion and seat itself upon the ruins of paganism. Within 30 years, it had settled the point. This is the gospel, it had settled the point that it would overturn every bloody altar, close every pagan temple, bring under its influence the men of office, rank, and power, and that the banners of the faith would soon stream from the palaces of the Caesars. All this would be accomplished by the instrumentality of Jews. of fishermen of Nazarenes. They had neither wealth nor armies. Or allies. With the exception of Paul, they were men without learning. They were taught only by the Holy Spirit, armed only with the power of God, victorious only because Christ was their captain. And the world acknowledged the presence of the messengers of the highest and the power of the Christian religion. Its success never has been and never can be accounted for by any other supposition than that God attended to it. God made it happen. Church, the same God that is attended to creation and the story of the Jews and the incarnation of Christ and the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ and the coming of Pentecost and attended to the explosion of the early church, and who has been with the gospel throughout history, the last 2,000 years, the same God that attended that gospel is attending it now, here, through you. God is attending. To the glory of his son. And he's using us. He's using us, church. Don't doubt. How can we not join into this? We know where the story is going. All things will be united in Christ. We will be around the throne of the Lamb with every nation. Where there are those from every nation, tribe, people, and language who are who are there cleansed and washed in the blood of the Lamb. Christ has a people and Christ has a place and we will reign with him forever. How can we not join in that church? He delights to use weak and broken people just like you and just like myself. In the power of the Spirit and trusting in the finished work of Christ and the strong sovereign providence of God, let's stir up worship for our King. Let's go that the nations may be glad and that praise to King Jesus will echo down for eternity. Because of what we have done, all for his glory, by the power of his spirit and in his grace. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you are a God that is worthy of worship, who satisfies our deepest longings. We pray that you are a God that is worthy not only that we would be satisfied in our affections, but we would live for you. God, we would live for you that others might take their joy in you, that you might receive more and more worship. God, we thank you for the gift of the gospel, the clear message that you have died for our sin. You have risen to give us new life, that we're made new, adopted into your family. God, I pray across this room that you would satisfy us in your love. Help us know your providence. God, and give us a heart for your glory among the nations. God, whether it's in our neighborhoods or whether it's getting on a boat or a plane and going across seas, whatever it is, God, we desire. We desire the end of all things to see Christ at the center. to see his glory and the glory of his grace on display. On display in and through all the multitudes who have been washed in his blood. It's in your name that we pray. Amen.

Genesis 3:15