Good morning, everyone. It is a blessing for me to be here. I hope it will be a blessing that I am here.
Matt reached out and asked me to share about some of the things going on in Emporia. One of them, most of you may know about already, is something we do called LifeWise Academy. It is an outreach to youth. I will share some about that, and hopefully, within that, share something that is on the Lord’s heart pertaining to it.
I will ask you for a bunch of prayers, and hopefully we can pray together and join together on this matter. A lot of times, when you share, there is a reason for it. If I get asked—and I do not get asked all the time, but I get asked sometimes—I always ask the Lord, “Do I have permission to do that? Can I do that? And why?”
I get this Scripture a lot when I have the freedom to share, out of Romans. I will have a topic, right? I am going to share about LifeWise, but I always need more than that. I need from the Lord, “Why? Why should I share about it?”
The Scripture where I was encouraged from the Lord—I feel like the Lord said, “You can go ahead and do it”—was from the first chapter of Romans, where Paul was greeting the church there.
I am just going to read it because it goes along. I feel like these chunks of these letters that I am going to read today are living and active. They may not match up perfectly, but it is the same church, the same resurrected Lord, the same Spirit. So I read this from Paul to you, but also, some of it is my heart and our heart from Emporia.
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,
which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures,
concerning His Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh
and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by His resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,
through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of His name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Christ.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.
For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers,
asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you.
For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—
that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.—Romans 1:1-12
I am not an apostle. I have prayed for you. I cannot say, “I pray for you unceasingly night and day,” but I have prayed for this fellowship. You have prayed for me.
When I was praying, I asked the Lord, “What is the meaning of this? What is the heart behind this?” I felt the Lord’s heart in the same way Paul said it: “I long to see you.” I have heard you have been praying for us. You have been supporting us. There is a longing for that.
I pray that something will be imparted to you, that you will be strengthened—and mutually so, because we need it. This is a very intimate thing. Paul loved this church. They were in the gospel together.
It seems powerful when he says, “According to the Spirit of holiness by His resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” That is where we are connected: our Lord.
I felt from the Lord last night and this morning, “I just want to encourage this group of Christians—My people. I want to impart something to them.” So I pray that is what we are going to do here.
Lord, I thank You so much for this morning. Lord, I thank You for this great gospel of Jesus Christ. Lord, that is good news.
Lord, worthy—we do say again—worthy is the Lamb. Lord, we pray that this message will be in that same spirit of worship, because You are worthy. You are worthy to be listened to. You are worthy to be honored. You are worthy for us to tell others about You.
More importantly, God, as we are telling, help us to show forth Your glory and show forth Your testimony. Lord, strengthen us, and at the end of all of this, use this time to impart something.
You are a real God with a real life. You have real gifts and real power, God. It is a real gospel, Lord. We are not just boxing the air or playing games. We actually have real words to deliver and real encouragement to give. This group has real encouragement to give back.
Lord, we expect that transaction, and You desire it today. I ask that Your will would be done. In Your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.
I do want to give a warning: I will probably use the word gospel a whole lot. It is a habit I am picking up from reading the Bible—reading Paul a whole lot. You pick up that phrase.
I may say it so many times that you might think, “What is he talking about?” It is one of those church words. You hear it, and your brain is so familiar with it that you say, “Oh yeah, I know what that is.” If I say I am going to talk about the gospel, you may take that word, throw it back in the file cabinet, and say, “Let’s see what else you have to say.”
Right? There is nothing else to say. Amen.
This is the heart of it. I believe the encouragement God wants to give you, or impart to you, is encouragement in the gospel. Let the Holy Spirit interpret whatever that will mean.
That is the purpose behind LifeWise. The gospel means good news, right? Everybody knows that. If you do not, now you know: gospel means good news.
I want to read from Isaiah 61, and then I will go into speaking about LifeWise Academy—what it is, where we have been, and those types of things. This has been a Scripture that my wife has been talking about a lot over the last year or two. We have been thinking about it, praying about it, and it has come up all over the place.
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me;
because the Lord hath anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek;
He hath sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all that mourn;
to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion,
to give unto them a garland for ashes,
the oil of joy for mourning,
the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
that they may be called trees of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.—Isaiah 61:1-3
Think about the Lord Himself. This is talking about the same Lord we sang about: the One who is resurrected, the One who is living in you and me, the One who is in His church and has invested Himself in His church.
This is what He read when He gave His own testimony about Himself. He is anointed. We all know He is anointed, but He is anointed to do these things.
I have learned that wherever the Lord really is, these things happen. They have to happen, because that is what He has been anointed to do.
The first thing He says is that He is anointed to bring good news to the poor. Well, we are the poor, right?
These songs we were singing encourage me already. I just turned forty-six this week, and it encourages me to watch people older than me still raise their hands when songs say, “You saved me from my sin,” and, “You saved me from my shame.”
You are still undone by that reality: this good news is still good, right? After all you have been through, it is still good.
I know I will get to preaching, and I have a problem with that, but let’s talk about LifeWise. I was thinking about the testimonies that are in this room—the things people have been through.
Then I looked down at the hymnbook and thought about all these brothers and sisters who wrote these songs, and all the testimonies represented in those songs. Then I thought about all the testimonies represented in this room.
All the sicknesses you have been through; all the deaths you have had to go through; all the disappointments, discouragements, church fights, miscommunications, misunderstandings—all those things represented in what you have been through.
To still show up and still testify to the goodness of God is a wonderful thing.
It made me feel this small. I thought, “Man, I am just a speck in the whole spectrum of eternity.” In the speck of this time, I get to stand up and share something.
I told the Lord, “I probably should not be here.” I feel like the Lord said, “You go encourage My people. You encourage My people.” That is what I hear from the Lord. He is very adamant that we would be encouraged and that the good news would keep being the good news.
That is our Lord’s heart. That is why He came and saved us. That is why He is the God who leaves the ninety-nine to go get the one. We were all the one. He left everything to come get us. Us ones make up the whole.
You know this: it is a wonderful thing to have the good news, but it can cause a lot of agony and suffering while you are on the earth. We have the good news, and people are still dying. People are still going astray. Whole sections of society are still under the grip of Satan while we have this glorious freedom in Christ Jesus.
It can cause a lot of prayer, intercession, fasting, and trying to figure God out—trying to pray and trying to witness. For years, that is how I have felt about Emporia.
LifeWise did not start with LifeWise itself. It started with this reality of who Jesus is. It started with the reality that He is anointed to do these things, followed by the question, “How come I am not seeing Him do these things?”
Then you cry out to the Lord. That is how you stand in the gap, right? You see something of the Lord’s reality, and then you see the condition of yourself, the church, people, or the lost. You stand in that gap and ask the Lord, “Are You going to bridge this gap? Why am I seeing these things?”
Out of that heart, you begin to pray, seek, and do a whole lot of work.
I grew up in Emporia. Ministry-wise, I have cared about the things of the Lord for probably the last twenty-five years. The number keeps changing as I get older, but it is close enough.
You get captured by this gospel. Paul says he was set apart for this gospel. I remember, probably ten or twelve years ago, being captured by that phrase.
I knew what Paul had done, what he was doing, and what he was suffering. Then he says of himself, “I am set apart for the gospel.” Everything you see coming out of me is because of what I have been set apart for, which is this gospel.
I remember seeing that and asking myself, “Can I say that? Can I look God in the face and say, ‘I am set apart for the gospel’?”
I did not know. When questions like that come to you, they turn into prayers. So I started asking the Lord, “I want to be set apart for the gospel. At the end of my life, I want it to be that I was actually set apart for the good news.”
That was the purpose of why these things flowed out. The Lord was doing that anyway. That is what He does with us.
Walking through that way, I tried to do things in my flesh a lot of times, or maybe even in my own emotions, because you really get to care for people. Then you go through the process of God having to burn out your own emotions so that He can give you a pure burden.
Sometimes I thought I was set apart for the gospel, but really, I was caring in my own flesh. That had to die so I could enter into the reality that God cares all the time, no matter what I feel like or what it looks like. This is who we are as a people.
Through this process, and through a lot of what seemed like failure, I know the Lord will get whatever blessing He wants to get out of what we do. That is up to Him. It will be up to Him in eternity. The fruit is up to the Lord.
After twenty-some years of prayer, I got to the place where I told the Lord, “It looks like nothing is working.”
I have preached. I have gone on the street and preached. I have done church services. I have gone here and there. I was working at a high school, and I shared the gospel there. It seemed like it was getting darker and darker and darker.
Last night, I was thinking about Scripture, and the Lord reminded me of the church in Philadelphia. This is where LifeWise comes in.
They were weak, but they had honored the Word of God. They were not ashamed. They kept the name of Jesus.
It is almost like you get to a point where you love God, you love your brothers and sisters, but you just cannot do anything. It seems that is where God likes to open doors.
That is what He told His church in Philadelphia: “I see that you are doing this, but I have opened a door for you.” He gave them the key of David. “I have opened a door that no man can shut.” See Revelation 3:7-8.
Through prayer and seeking the Lord, I feel like we came to a point where we had the prayer and the commission from God, but we were boiled down to this: we knew God’s Word was true, and we knew the name of Jesus was what we stood for.
But we did not have the strength to do anything. I did not have the strength to organize a nonprofit organization. I did not have the wisdom either. I did not have the strength to put all those things in place.
Things get dark, and at the right time, God opens the door that nobody could think about.
He sent this ministry that was almost a prepackaged ministry, with the steps to do things. The whole heart of LifeWise Academy is that it is a nonprofit organization across the nation.
During school hours, children whose parents sign them up can be picked up for Bible study. They can be picked up to hear the gospel.
Before this came about, after working with kids, I realized—and I have said this many times—that these kids need one thing. They need the living Word of God.
They need a lot of things, but the only thing they really need is the living Word of God. The Lord put that on my heart four or five years ago. It was almost like I latched onto that prayer, and the Lord said, “This is all I want you to pray right now.”
For a couple of years, when I prayed for the youth of Emporia and when I prayed for Emporia, I prayed this: “Lord, get them the Word.”
Then I realized this is a prayer that the apostle Paul prayed: that a door would be opened and that the Word would go forth swiftly. So I felt in good company.
For years I prayed, “Would You just get them the Word? Could You please get them the Word? Lord, get the Word to them.” This is their salvation. This is the only hope. There is no hope outside of this Word.
I did not know that part of the answer to that prayer would be LifeWise Academy. It came about at the right time, with the right people in the right place for it to actually happen.
Technically, LifeWise is a nonprofit organization. They found that, in the 1950s, provision was made for public-school students to have released time for religious instruction. It cannot be narrowed down only to Christianity, so it is called released time for religious instruction.
It is legal, and there are three criteria: parents have to sign off for their children; it cannot be on school property; and it cannot cost the school district any money.
There are hundreds of LifeWise programs across the United States. Emporia is the only one in Virginia right now, though I think other ones are ready to start.
The founder’s mother is from Emporia, and she was really adamant that Emporia should have one. She really encouraged it.
My own personal testimony is what I just told you: I prayed, and I came to feel like the Lord was saying, “This is the answer to that prayer.”
I got to a point where I thought, “This is a nonprofit organization. What does this have to do with the church? This is not spiritual.” I told my wife, “I do not think I want anything to do with this.”
She said, “I think you ought to ask the Lord.” You know how that usually goes, do you not?
While I was sitting in the first information meeting, the Lord softened my heart and said, “This is an answer to what you have been praying.” That was almost three years ago.
The Scripture about the church in Philadelphia really stood out to me last night: the Lord opened the door.
I was thinking about LifeWise, and I thought, “This probably should not be happening in Emporia right now, and I surely probably should not be the leader of it.”
Then I thought about all the provision: all the people who said they were praying, all the things that happened and keep happening. Part of me feels like I am watching God say, “I love people so much.”
He is still anointed to bring good news to the poor. He is still wanting to get people in His presence.
I have seen the Lord provide money, a bus, and people who teach. I do not teach in it. I do not do the day-to-day things of teaching the kids the Bible and preaching the gospel to them.
I am what they call a director. I get to stand in the gap, do some paperwork, and do some prayer. But to watch the Lord open a door—I never would have thought about it. That is how you know it is the Lord.
A couple of years ago, I was telling the Lord, “I do not like what is going on. This whole town needs the gospel.” Now, around 280 elementary-school children get to hear the gospel every week.
I am busy, so I do not always get to think about it. But last night I was thinking, “Is that really happening?” Are these people really in classrooms telling these kids about the Bible and about Jesus, and actually loving them so that the kids know these people love them?
The Lord is good. To watch Him love people, provide, and be Himself is glorious.
When you see those points, you think whatever you had to go through does not exist anymore. You almost say, maybe naively, “Well, bring on whatever is next.” But that is the way we should be going, right? From glory to glory.
Testimony from a LifeWise worker: We probably have all kinds of really cool stories, but the whole time I have been in here, I have been thinking about one thing.
When we were in Richmond, I remember a prayer that was prayed repeatedly at prayer meetings. People would give reports about the school system—how things were getting worse and worse, and how more and more evil was being allowed in.
Over and over, I specifically remember the prayer that the Lord would do something and raise up a standard against what was coming into the schools. I remember the Scripture: “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.” See Isaiah 59:19.
I think about those prayers almost all the time when I see what is happening with LifeWise. I remember asking the Lord to do something miraculous and to raise up a standard against all the evil flooding into the schools.
Stephen shared that same verse at the LifeWise dinner recently. I think that is true. I am glad you all are here because you can help me with my memory.
There was a child last year who came to LifeWise. He had a Bible already, but he wanted to read it. He would go to the child watch at the YMCA, where Gianna happened to be a caregiver.
He would bring his Bible and ask to read it with Gianna every time he came in. Then he asked someone to take him to church.
This child approached someone he knew attended church, started attending church himself, and now his entire family is going to church because of him.
The standard is not only people taking a stand for these students; it is what God is already doing through them. The Lord is working in them and through them to help draw their families near to Him.
Jeffrey said that people walking by on the street recognize him as one of the LifeWise teachers. They say, “I heard the story that you taught this week,” even though their own child is not in LifeWise. They heard it from another student at school.
Fourth- and fifth-grade children are telling other students what they heard at LifeWise. The kids are already being used. The standard is being raised beyond what we have the means or capability to do. The Lord is able to do that beyond what we are capable of.
Testimony from Stephen’s wife: When Catherine and Jeffrey moved to Emporia, they were halfway there and halfway here. They were staying in a house that Betty Ann had sold to Stephen and me. It has a lot of land.
We were doing a youth Bible study at our house, and some of the younger kids would go to Catherine and Jeffrey’s house during that Bible study. The same girl Stephen spoke about, Leslie, suddenly wanted to bring her whole public-school class over there.
She started picking up loads of children and bringing them over. There were so many kids that we had to move our youth meeting over there too, just so we would have enough people to watch all of them.
This was before LifeWise. Stephen said, “We are going to get in trouble.” These were kids from pretty difficult backgrounds, and we needed more supervision.
Right after that, the Lord raised up LifeWise. It was like a miracle—the way everything came together. There was suddenly much more capacity to reach and bring children.
When we first started, we did not have the big bus. We used Gail’s large van, another large van, and my minivan to pick up the kids at the elementary school.
I remember asking the kids in my minivan, “Tell me what you all know about Noah’s ark.” These kids did not even know stories that most people would assume they knew. They knew nothing. It was almost like being in a third-world country—in our own country.
We have a generation of children who are not taken to church anymore. There are no Sunday schools anymore. You go to many churches, and there are no Sunday schools. These kids knew none of the stories that we all take for granted, the stories we grew up on.
It was really eye-opening to see the lack of knowledge about Jesus. This year, some of the classes taught the Ten Commandments. To hear these children realize that some of the things they do daily are actually sin—they are gripped with conviction.
They also see that some of their parents are living in sin. They know. It is really a miracle that the Lord has raised this up.
We have been in Emporia a long time. This was our twentieth anniversary, so I have personally been there twenty years, and Stephen has been there even longer.
We appreciate all your prayers and your care for us, because we feel like we are on a mission field. It is a very different culture. But it is amazing to see the Lord raise up something miraculous.
After all these years, this is something through which the gospel is going out. This next generation in Emporia can literally be transformed as they get older. That is our prayer. We appreciate all of you praying.
Testimony from a LifeWise teacher: There really are so many stories. We went through the Ten Commandments during the last couple of months of school.
In a first-grade class, we came to “Do not murder.” You think that is one you have to explain carefully, so we explained that it also means, “Do not hate.”
We already knew there was one girl in the room whose father had murdered her mother. Then a girl across the room said, “My dad is in jail for murder.” Someone else said, “My uncle is in jail for murder.”
This was in a class of twelve first-graders. The gospel means something.
Every week, as we talk about these things, children come up and say, “My mom does this,” or, “My dad does this.” But it is a privilege.
This year we were in Exodus, talking about the Israelites coming out of Egypt and the Lord raising up a standard. Alongside the Ten Commandments, we taught, “Be holy, as I am holy.” See Leviticus 19:2.
Even as the children of Israel went out, the Lord called them to live in a way that none of the nations around them were living. The Lord was calling them and raising up a standard for them.
We are able to encourage the children: “Yes, this is all around you, but the Lord is calling you and raising up a standard for you to represent Him.” They are receiving it.
We have had many classes where children were in tears—where many in the class were in tears.
There was a little boy who said, “Wait, so is the gospel like this?” He explained the whole thing back to Jeffrey. Jeffrey said, “Yeah, that is it.” His eyes lit up.
Since then, he has had opportunities to meet with Gianna at the YMCA. Seeds are going in.
We are aware that they go back to homes where there is nothing. Some of these kids live on my street. If they have a parent around, their parents are almost not there.
One big prayer has been that when they leave their twenty minutes a week of hearing the Word, those seeds would stay with them.
I run into these kids regularly. About a month ago, I took a bunch of them on a walk down to the river. On the way back, they were saying, “Don’t do that. That is breaking a commandment,” and, “Miss Catherine, she is breaking one of the commandments.”
They are thinking about it. They turn to their friends and say, “You broke a commandment.” Something is sticking.
Testimony from a LifeWise volunteer: I am just a volunteer for one class, so I am hardly worthy to be called a LifeWise helper. But when Stephen was sharing about his prayer for the Word to go forward, I thought of the Lord’s parable of the sower.
The seed is the Word of God. As it is falling, I can testify to one little seed the Lord gave me the opportunity to see.
Bobby, one of the teachers, was using a little hand trick to teach the children the Ten Commandments. For adultery, which is number seven, he had two fingers hiding behind the others because they were doing something they should not do.
All the children were learning it. Bobby then concluded with the gospel message, using the Ten Commandments as a way into the gospel.
There was one child I could tell was confused. He said, “So, hold on. Are we supposed to follow these commandments or are we not? Are these Ten Commandments for getting into heaven or not?”
On the bus, I had about five minutes with him. I sat next to him and explained the last little bit of what Bobby had been saying.
I asked, “Do you keep all these commandments?” He said, “Well, no, not perfectly.” I asked, “If God were to judge you by them, would you be guilty or innocent?” He said, “Wouldn’t we all be guilty?”
I said, “That is the whole point of what he said at the end: Jesus actually took the penalty that was due to us.”
To see it click in his mind—that maybe for the first time in his life he understood the truth of the gospel—was wonderful. I do not know if he was born again at that moment or what, but it was one of many little seeds the Lord is casting.
For years, it seemed like there was an impediment to the Word of God coming forth. LifeWise is just a piece, but it seems the Lord is opening the door for the seeds to go out.
We are praying not only for the seed to go out, but also for the ground to be right. As Catherine said, the children will go home, and a lot of times there is nothing there.
A lot of times, the birds of the air are probably snatching the Word even at home. There is a lot of strange teaching in different places throughout Emporia.
We are praying for the soil. We are praying for the evil one to be held back from snatching the Word. It is a real encouragement that the Lord is opening the door for the seed to be scattered. Praise the Lord.
In closing, I want to read a couple of Scriptures directly related to prayer. You are getting a report, but this is a work you are helping us with through prayer and support, just like the apostle Paul had.
Pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given unto me in opening my mouth,
to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.—Ephesians 6:19
Continue steadfastly in prayer, watching therein with thanksgiving;
withal praying for us also, that God may open unto us a door for the word,
to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds;
that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.—Colossians 4:2-4
We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers;
remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father;
knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election,
how that our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance.—1 Thessalonians 1:2-5
Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run and be glorified, even as also with you;
and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and evil men; for all have not faith.
But the Lord is faithful, who shall establish you, and guard you from the evil one.
And we have confidence in the Lord touching you, that ye both do and will do the things which we command.
And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patience of Christ.—2 Thessalonians 3:1-5
The Lord has opened the door. Continue to pray for us that, once we are in that door, we will say what we ought to say.
This is my prayer request. As Kent said, before it seemed like the Word was not even going out. The Word is out now. It is going out—not fully, but it is getting started.
I am beginning to notice these other things tied to it. Paul says, “Pray that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.”
The Word is going out. Pray that we would have boldness. Pray that we would know what we ought to say and how to say it.
Just because we are out there working does not mean we know what to say. If the apostle Paul had to keep asking the churches, “Pray for me that I would know what to say when I open my mouth, that I can do this with boldness,” then that is what we need: boldness.
Also, Paul said the gospel came not in word only, but in power, in the Holy Spirit, and with full conviction—or, as some translations say, full assurance.
Pray that we are not giving out the gospel in word only. Pray that it would be the true gospel and that it would be accompanied with these things.
These children and God’s church need power. We need His Holy Spirit. We need full conviction and full assurance.
A lot of people and a lot of kids go to church in Emporia, but you do not walk around like you have full assurance. That is what we are praying for.
I would beg for that prayer: that it would go forth with power, by the Holy Spirit, and with full conviction, so the Holy Spirit would be able to honor that Word.
Paul also says, “Pray for us that the Lord’s message may spread rapidly and be honored.”
The Word is going forth. I used to pray only that it would go forth rapidly, and I ignored the “be honored” part. I feel like the Lord said, “Now it is going forth. You need to pray that it begins to be honored.”
When Paul says, “Just as it was with you,” he is referring to how the Thessalonians received the Word. They did not just receive it by saying, “That is great. We agree with it.” They were changed.
They received the Word with full conviction, power, and the Holy Spirit. They were changed, and everybody knew about it. That is what he means when he says that the Word would be honored.
We do not want to fill Emporia with more Bible knowledge. We want to see more children filled with Christ and assured.
There is a song they use at LifeWise with the theme, “He knows my name.” When we are assured with full assurance—which only the Holy Spirit can give—then that child is usually going to be good for eternity.
Pray for boldness for those who speak. Pray that the Word that is going out swiftly will begin to be honored in homes, maybe even in churches, so that God can actually do His work behind His Word and bring about the fruit He wants.
Pray also about being held back from the evil one. Pray that these seeds would go into good ground and that the enemy would not keep snatching them.
Those are the specific prayers we need now. I believe they are strategic to God getting what He desires, so that He can keep building His church and making His bride beautiful for His return.
We do not preach the gospel just so people can feel good about themselves. We preach it so they can know Christ, and so Christ can get what He died for: His beautiful, glorious church.
Whatever part of that church He desired and died to get out of Emporia, Virginia, during our generation, I pray we will be faithful to do our part. Pray that we will be strengthened.
I want to pray for you all as we wrap up: that the gospel will become fresh to you, powerful again to you, and sweet to you.
Because you have partnered with us and given to us, may the Lord give you the same blessing He has given us. May He strengthen you.
Those of you who are tired, and those of you who are going through it, I pray the Lord would strengthen you with holy expectation in this glorious gospel we have. Nobody else has it. It is only in Christ Jesus. It is only in the church.
The same things I ask you to pray for us, I pray for you: that God would give you open doors, that God would give you boldness, that the Word would spread swiftly, and that it would be honored in the church and wherever you go.
The Philippians partnered with Paul in the establishment of the gospel. May God show us together more and more what that means.
I pray that this gospel will be so fresh to us. We are a gospel community. Sometimes we use the phrase, “gospel meeting.” Was today a gospel meeting? It sure was to me.
I was reminded of who I am and who Christ is. Evangelists, do not get mad at me—I know we have to preach the gospel, and we should have gospel meetings.
But I have been thinking a whole lot about Romans 1:16:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel:
for it is the power of God unto salvation
to every one that believeth.—Romans 1:16
I feel like the key thing the Lord wants to impart to you is renewed belief—to stir you up to be a renewed, believing people. He wants to inject belief into you afresh, like it is the first day you ever heard or met the gospel.
That is what the Lord does: He makes it new every day.
I was reading one day where it says the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. I asked the Lord, “I preached the gospel to a lot of people, and there was no power. Nobody got saved.”
I feel like I heard Him say, “Well, Stephen, if I could get the ones preaching it to believe it, maybe I could act.”
The Lord showed me that belief works two ways. God wants you to believe again.
No matter what it feels like or what the world tells you, there is only one message. There is only one hope in Christ Jesus, and you have it. Act like it. Be bold and tell people that.
Younger people, if you cannot say you are set apart for the gospel, ask the Lord about it. Ask Him that you would want your life set apart for the gospel.
If you are captured by Christ, you want to be set apart for the gospel of Jesus Christ—the good news of Christ.
Paul was set apart for the gospel when he was being beaten for preaching it, and he was set apart for the gospel when he was making tents. It is not about what it should look like. It is between you and the Lord.
He died for you. He loves you. Ask the Lord to let you be set apart for the gospel, and believe it. Believe what you already have.
It is like the Lord said, “The reality of what you need right now is right under your nose. It is called the gospel. Believe it and speak it.”
Lord, I thank You for this morning. Lord, I thank You for what it all comes down to.
You are wonderful. You are God, and You died for us, Lord Jesus. It is so simple.
Lord, I pray that You would renew whatever this means to You. Renew it in our lives.
I pray for this group here—the ones who have given money, prayed for us, and encouraged us. Lord, I thank You for this partnership.
Lord, I pray that You would stir up belief in this fellowship. May they begin to believe as though they were just born again today.
May they find themselves singing to You more, witnessing without even thinking about it, and enjoying all the goodness of so great a salvation that You bought and purchased with Your own blood.
Lord, refresh people here. Refresh people who are weary, or who may be going through the motions because that is all they have the strength to do.
Lord, You love to come and strengthen people. Strengthen them with fresh belief in this house, in this portion of Your house. Let there be mighty belief, Lord.
Strengthen the ones who have been standing and fighting for so long. Make them brand new in You, Lord Jesus.
Lord, I am confident—and it is the right thing to say—that the thing You have started here, You will bring to completion.
Lord, on that day, You will get what You desired. I thank You for the fellowship today. We love You. In Your name, Jesus. Amen.