Where Christ Has Not Been Named

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0:15Well, good morning. For those who don't know me, my name is Nick Whitehead. I serve here on staff as our pastor for global outreach. Would you join me as I pray and ask the Lord for his help now? Father, we do long for the day when we will indeed lift our voices with every tribe and tongue, and even the angels of heaven, to sing of the victory of the Lamb. And until then, and even through this time now in your word, would you work in us, your blood-bought people, to advance the name of your Son to the very ends of the earth. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, if you've been around this body for any length of time, you know that missions is one of our priorities as a church.

1:03Our church has a long history of sending out missionaries to make disciples among the nations, going all the way back to a man named Ola and his wife, Minnie Hanson, who served in Burma over 100 years ago, sent out from Bethlehem Baptist Church, our church mother, if you want to say it that way. We presently link arms with 27 different global partners. You saw them on the video as some of them spoke to you. And these are people who were raised up from within our church, discipled here, and then launched out across to places like South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asia.

1:45And we continue to invest in future gospel labors to train up some from within our midst to affirm their giftings and their character, and to financially and logistically launch them out into strategic ministry in the world. You might be a newcomer, though, this morning or within the last few weeks, and you're wondering why everything's a little different this week. Why are we not in Matthew? Why are we playing this global partner video? What's going on this week? Why are there so many events? And this is because we've established a rhythm as a body to reflect each year on God's heart for the nations, and his call upon our church to participate in the Great Commission.

2:28So we take a week and we reflect again on this priority because we know how easy it is for this to fall by the wayside as the immediate pressures around us and the needs of local church life continue to bombard us. And so we built this into our calendar because we don't want this priority just to exist as part of a decorative mission statement on the wall. We really want to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things, for the joy of all peoples through Christ. And one easy way to keep this ambition as a priority is to talk about it, is to reflect upon it. It's to stick our noses again in the same old scriptures that have fueled us for decades. And one of these texts is Romans 15.

3:18In the verses that you just heard read, Paul reminds the Romans of the biblical ambition God has given him to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, but where Christ has not been named. Paul has a lot of good ministry opportunities tugging on him, pulling him in different directions, not to mention the sufferings and challenges and anxieties that could distract him. And so here in this text, Paul recenters himself again on the driving God-given ambition of his life in order to keep himself on target. And so I'm eager to dive into this text with you today to see Paul's ambition to preach Christ where he has yet to be named, and to consider together what this means for us personally and as a church.

4:09And so this morning, rather than working through the verse in sequence, I plan to explore this text by answering four questions. But I do encourage you, keep your Bibles open. We're going to be looking for the answers to these questions in the text, Romans 15:18 through 24. So here's the four questions. First, what is Paul's ambition? Second, how did he fulfill this ambition in the whole region of Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum? Third, how did Paul relate this ambition to other good work and ministry? And fourth, where did this ambition come from? Where did Paul get it? So first, what is Paul's ambition? Look at verse 20.

4:56Paul states it plainly, "I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation." Paul's desire, his aspiration, is to preach the gospel, to preach the perfect life, the sacrificial death, and the glorious resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ for the eternal salvation of sinners. But what distinguishes his ambition to preach this gospel is specifically where he wants to preach it. He wants to preach Christ where he has never been named. He wants to lay foundations. We could say he wants to pour gospel cement where no one else has developed any Christian infrastructure. There's no walls.

5:47There's no roof. There's no siding. These are places where there is no church. There's no scripture. There's no Christian seminary. There's no publishing house. According to Radius International, which is the organization that our guest speaker next week leads, there are still over 3,000 language groups in the world that fit Paul's category here. 3,000 language groups that have yet to hear of Jesus Christ and his redemptive work. I think it can be hard for us here in America to even imagine contexts like these, especially for those of us who have grown up in the church. My kids have looked at me with shock when I tell them that our next-door neighbors don't go to church. Okay.

6:33Imagine a place. Imagine a people group where every single individual in that ethnic group not only doesn't believe in Jesus, they've never heard of him, and they've never met anyone who knows him. And some of these cultures have dwelt in darkness since the beginning of their existence on this planet. That is tragic. Now, I didn't expect that I'd ever quote "Anne of Green Gables" in a mission sermon. But earlier this year, Becky and I were reading it, and I came across this quote that I thought illustrates this tragedy. So the main character, Anne, who has a very dramatic over-imagination, is reflecting to her guardian, Marilla, about the beauty of a certain flower native to North America. And here's what Anne says to Marilla, "I'm so sorry for people who live in lands where there are no Mayflowers.

7:30My friend Diana says perhaps they have something better. But there couldn't be anything better than Mayflowers, could there?" And Diana says, "If they don't know what they are like, they don't miss them." But I think that is the saddest thing of all. I think it would be tragic, Marilla, not to know what Mayflowers are like and not to miss them. We could chuckle at those words because there's nothing tragic about Mayflowers. But if Anne had been speaking of Christ, there could be nothing more sobering and tragic than the thought of people who live in lands who have never heard the name of Christ.

8:11And some of us may seek to comfort ourselves by saying, "Well, if they haven't heard of him, they don't miss him." But that indeed is truly the saddest thing of all. For it is tragic, brothers and sisters, that there are 3,000 language groups that know nothing about Christ and what he is like, and worse, they don't even know they're missing him. This is Paul's burden. This is the great tragedy Paul aspires to rectify, to introduce these people who otherwise would never hear of Christ, who've never encountered the glory of his incarnation and his life and his death and his resurrection, to see him and know him and be reconciled to the God of the universe through him.

8:58This is Paul's driving ambition. And this brings us to our second question: How did Paul fulfill this ambition in the whole region of Jerusalem to Illyricum, like it says in verse 19? Well, first, I wanna make sure to say that whatever he accomplished, he accomplished by God's power, not his own strength. So look at verses 18 and 19. Paul says, "For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God." We could at first think Paul is boasting here of his great accomplishments. Let me tell you what I've done among the Gentiles.

9:49But then he gives credit somewhere else. He gives credit to Christ who accomplished it through him. And how did Christ accomplish it? He provided Paul with his living word and strengthened him for obedience, word and deed. He provided Paul the power to work miracles and wonders, and he provided the Spirit of God that brings dead sinners to life. So these words make it abundantly clear that Paul is not boasting in himself, but he's giving credit to Christ for what has been accomplished in these regions. But what exactly did Paul, by the grace of God, accomplish? What can he mean in verse 19 when he says he fulfilled, or it could be translated, he completed, the ministry of the gospel from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum? Illyricum is modern-day Albania.

10:48So you think about Jerusalem and Turkey and Greece all the way up to modern-day Albania. Or what does Paul mean in verse 23, if you look down at that verse, when he says he has no more room for work in these regions? How did Paul know when his work was done in a place? What we do know is that he wasn't done simply when he preached the gospel somewhere. Why do I say that? If you look at verse 18 again, Paul tells us exactly what he did by the power of Christ to fulfill the ministry of the gospel. He says, "I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience."

11:34So what has Paul accomplished? He's brought the Gentiles in these regions to obedience. He's not just preached the message of the gospel to them. He's not just converted a few. He has brought them to obedient submission to God that springs from true faith. That's Paul's apostolic ambition. The bookends of the letter to the Romans confirm Paul's apostolic purpose. If you want to flip there, Romans 1:5, the beginning of the book, and Paul says, "We have received grace and apostleship," for what purpose? "To bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations." And then right at the end of this letter-- I heard a lot of you flipping.

12:28If you want to try, flip all the way to the end of the letter, chapter 16:26. Chapter 16:26, Paul writes that he preached the gospel of Christ to all nations, again, for what purpose? To bring about the obedience of faith. So despite the popular nomenclature today, Paul's ambition was not merely to reach the unreached. It was to disciple the undisciplined. It was to bring these peoples to mature faith, to the obedience that flows from faith. And so then we ask, did Paul complete this ministry in these regions by seeing every single individual saved and matured in the gospel? Was this a revival with 100% success rate?

13:21That was certainly not the reality. We know that there are many in these places who rejected the gospel. We see this through the Book of Acts, and we know that Paul didn't make it to every single town and village in these regions. That would've been impossible in his lifetime. Rather, when Paul says that he fulfilled the ministry of the gospel, he means that he established churches in strategic places throughout that region. Paul knew that God has designed the local church to be the primary means of grace for maturing new believers and advancing the gospel in a region. This is why in Acts 14, Paul returns to every single Gentile city where he preaches the gospel, and it says that he comes back to these new believers, and he seeks to strengthen their souls and then appoint elders in every single church.

14:14Paul wasn't just after conversions. He was after churches. Paul wasn't just throwing up camping tents. He was laying permanent foundations to stand the test of time in a place. And so when Paul says he fulfilled the ministry of the gospel from modern-day Israel all the way up to Albania, it's because churches have been planted in strategic places all throughout that region. In fact, if you sifted through the Book of Acts and Paul's letters, you would see that there are churches established in dozens of cities and towns throughout this region. I mean, you know these city names from your Bible reading.

14:51Antioch, Lystra, Derbe, Colossae, Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Corinth. I could keep going. Paul had been doing missionary work in this region for likely two decades since his conversion. So by the time Paul writes this letter to the Romans, there are churches in every major region, Judea, Samaria, Syria, Galatia, Asia Minor, Macedonia, Achaia, and even as far as Italy, where he writes to the Romans. So you can literally imagine the entire region just dotted with churches. This was the metric Paul was using to determine when the work was done in any given place. Not just did I preach the gospel there, not just did a few come to faith there, but is there a solid church that can stand on its own two feet and continue to advance the gospel and mature the saints in a given region?

15:50If there is, then Paul says, "Mission accomplished. My work here is done." Now, there's always more ministry to be done in every place. You live in Minneapolis, St. Paul. The church is here. Many churches are here. There's work to be done, and we see this even from Paul. He puts Timothy, his young disciple, smack dab in the middle of this region where his work is done, and yet he puts Timothy there, plants him in the church at Ephesus, and he says what? "Do the work of an evangelist." This implies there's still lost people all around in Ephesus to whom Timothy must now minister. But Paul had personally fulfilled his ambition to establish a kingdom outpost with its own leadership that could stand the test of time in a region formerly devoid of the gospel.

16:43And he can say that his work is completed because the quality and depth of his work in these strategic cities left behind churches that could be the pillar and buttress of truth in these places. So now we get to our next big question. How did Paul relate this personal ambition that he had to other good Christian work and ministry? Is Paul's aspiration to preach the gospel of Christ where he has never been named, is that all Paul cares about? Is he just trying to get to Spain at all costs with no pause for lesser ministry distractions? The answer is no. I think Paul has a more complex pastoral heart.

17:32So just in these few verses alone, our text this morning, we see at least two other ministry activities that Paul desired to carry out. First, Paul wanted to spend time with and do spiritual good to the church in Rome, a place that was already reached with the gospel. So look again at verses 22 through 24. Look what Paul says to the Roman church. "This is the reason why I've so often been hindered from coming to you. But now, since I no longer have any room for work in these regions, and since I've longed for many years to come to you, I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain, and to be helped on my journey there by you once I've enjoyed your company for a while."

18:17So Paul didn't even plant this church in Rome. He'd probably never even been there before. But he longs to see these brothers and sisters, to enjoy their company for some time. Listen how he speaks to them in the opening of his letter. You don't need to flip there, but Romans 1:11, Paul says this: "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." The Romans have already heard and believed in the gospel, and yet Paul desires to reap some spiritual fruit among them. In fact, he's taken the time to write the most robust explanation and unpacking of the gospel, the Book of Romans, and sends it to them.

19:04So does Paul only care about preaching to those who've never heard of Christ? Certainly not. He expresses a deep longing to impart spiritual good to Roman Christians who are already in the faith and to be mutually encouraged by them. But if we flip back to Romans 15, immediately following the section that we read this morning, so flip to verse 25, we get to yet another surprising activity that Paul shows us, and it shows us how complex his missionary ambition is. So look at verses 25 through 28. So Paul has just said, "I'm eager to come see you Romans on my way to Spain," but then he says this in verse 25: "At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem bringing aid to the saints. For Macedonia and Achaia," that's where he is, "have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem."

20:01And then you skip to verse 28, he writes, "When therefore I have completed this and have delivered to them what has been collected, I will leave for Spain by way of you." So before Paul goes to Spain, before he even visits the Romans, he's going to travel all the way back from where he is in Greece with a gift from these Gentile Christians to the hub of Christianity, the church in Jerusalem. There's no Venmo back then, okay? No direct wire. So Paul volunteers to be the delivery boy of these financial gifts. So I just say that because I want us to be careful when we assess what we think Paul would do and what his mission strategy was. He was a complex man.

20:43He certainly had an ambition to preach Christ where he had not been named, but he clearly cared about providing for the church in Jerusalem and strengthening the church in Rome. And if we looked at other scriptures, we would see he cares about establishing healthy leaders in places like Crete and Ephesus. And so we might ask, how does Paul reconcile this deep personal ambition to preach Christ where he's not been named with these other good Christian activities? We really wonder, Paul, couldn't you find someone else to take the money back to Jerusalem? Seems a little outside of your priorities. But here's the thing.

21:19For Paul, these activities were not mutually exclusive. So I want you to think about this. Paul helps these Gentile churches in Macedonia send financial help all the way back to the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. Why would he take time to do this? I think Paul was eager to remind the Jewish Christians who struggled with ethnic exclusion that God is bringing the Gentiles into the family of God. And so getting the gift to Jerusalem and advancing the gospel into Christless territory were not mutually exclusive activities. Paul saw the delivery of a financial gift as killing two birds with one stone.

22:03The church in Jerusalem gets material help, and a vision of folding the Gentile nations of the earth into the people of God is promoted. And the same is true when we think of Paul's efforts to strengthen the church in Rome. Paul did not see this ministry activity as disconnected from or at odds with his ambition to preach Christ where he had not been named. So we don't have to read between the lines. Paul says it really clearly. Look at verse 24. He says to the church in Rome, "I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain, and to be helped on my journey there by you." He says, "Yeah, I'm coming to you in Rome because I want to see you and bless you, but I'm also stopping there because I expect that you will help me logistically and financially carry on to Spain to proclaim there for the first time the glorious riches of Christ." One author I read wrote this: Paul anticipates Rome becoming a base of operations for his foray into the West.

23:09So even as he strengthens the faith of the Romans, he's preparing them for and inviting them to participate in advancing the name of Jesus into gospelless territory. So Paul knows that in God's economy, every Christian good has its place in advancing the gospel to the ends of the earth. Nevertheless, for Paul, his personal priority, the way he saw himself strategically fitting into the Great Commission, was to do the foundation-laying work of preaching where Christ has not been named. He says to the Romans in verse 22, "For this reason I have so often been hindered from coming to you." Paul's ambition, his personal ambition, has kept him at times from other good Christian ministry. He's a finite man, and he knows it.

23:59And so to accomplish this ambition, he had to prioritize it over other good work that he was fully capable of carrying out. He determined that his role was to start Christian work where it had not been started, and then once the church was established, to leave it in the hands of others. And at this point, I do just want to ask, does Paul's missionary ambition stir you up personally? Of course, my aim in this sermon is that we, as a corporate body, would get excited about this, that we would embrace this mission statement on the wall. But what I'm asking here specifically is, are there any of you personally, individually, who feel a zeal like Paul to play a direct role in proclaiming Christ in places and among peoples where he has never been mentioned before, who don't even know they're missing him?

24:53If that is you, if the Lord is stirring your heart, I'd be so eager to engage with you. I'd be so eager to walk with you in that. And I would invite you specifically to join us next week following the second service for a Missions Explore Lunch, where we would love to talk more with you about some of these things. And then we want to be a church who invests deeply and intentionally in these few who, like Paul, see this as their life's ambition. And this leads me to one final question of this text, and that is, where does this type of ambition come from? Where did Paul get it? I've talked with a plethora of individuals who say they're called to missions, and one of the questions that I like to ask anybody who tells me they want to be a missionary is, why? Why do you want to be a missionary?

25:45And I hear lots of answers. Some have answered, "I really love learning about different peoples and places. I really like particular elements of foreign culture. I really love to travel. I really love adventure." Or there's others who have felt inspired to go overseas to participate in admirable and just humanitarian causes. For example, relief of the poor or freedom for human trafficking victims or care for orphans, water for the thirsty. Others answer this question by pointing to some existential experience, like a vision or a dream or a voice in their head or an overwhelming sensation. And none of these are evil inclinations, and they're very often genuine, but I believe they are superficial when compared to the biblical motivations for missionary activity.

26:35Look at Romans 15:20 and 21. Here we get an example of the foundational motivation of a missionary. So read those verses again with me. Paul says, "I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation. But as it is written, 'Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.'" So Paul grounds his missionary ambition in scripture, in God's holy word. Remember, this is a man who Jesus came to in a vision on the Damascus road and told him he would be an apostle to the Gentiles. And yet when Paul explains where his ambition comes from, he does not reference the Damascus road experience. He cites the prophet Isaiah.

27:31He cites Isaiah 52:15, and this comes from a broader section of scripture that you're very familiar with, I'm sure, where Isaiah prophesies of the innocent servant of Yahweh who would be crushed for the sins of his people, and he would account his people righteous in him. It's in this context that Isaiah predicts that those who once had no announcement concerning this Messianic servant would one day see and understand who he is. Isaiah, over 700 years before Paul, announces that the nations of the world who once did not have access to the knowledge of the Messiah would hear and believe and enter salvation. And Paul is fueled by this word from the Lord, that the kings of the nations will shut their mouths in awe of the suffering servant king, that those Gentiles who have never had access to the Jewish scriptures would be told of him, and they would understand who he is.

28:31And Paul gets out of bed in the morning for that scriptural vision. And you could just scour all of Paul's letters and the book of Acts, and you would see how his missionary ambition is fueled by his reading of scripture. In fact, you could jump back just a few verses in Romans to verses eight through 12. I'm not going to read those, but you just see listed out there, Paul cites text after text after text from Psalms and Deuteronomy and again from Isaiah, all of which have inspired him to preach to Gentile nations who will one day glorify God for his mercy to them. And there's an application in this for those who are tempted to leverage a vision or experience as the grounds for their calling or passion.

29:19It could be that God uses a dream or a vision in your life, but this ambition, if it's truly from the Lord, will be corroborated by scripture. And the Holy Scripture, the final and clearly revealed word of God, is what you ultimately want to be the bedrock of your life's ambition. Now, I know that Paul's ambition may not be your personal ambition. You're not sensing in this moment, perhaps, that you're going to go to India or Bangladesh or Indonesia, but God often works through his word to compel certain members of the church more than others towards certain biblical ministry goals and objectives.

30:00No single one of us can do all that scripture requires of the church as a whole. So it is with joy that we partner with those in our midst who are gifted for and particularly passionate about specific ministry ambitions. For example, I'm thankful that some of us give particular attention to saving the unborn from unjust slaughter. Those who fight for the lives of vulnerable image-bearers because they're fueled by texts like Genesis 9:6 that says, "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man, even the smallest, in his image." And I'm grateful for some in our midst who have a particular passion to pass on the faith to the next generation. I asked one of these people, Pastor Ben Catterson, if there was a scripture that fuels him in his ministry to middle schoolers and their families, and he didn't even have to think about it.

30:56He's like, "Deuteronomy 6:20." Says, "When your son asks you in time to come, 'What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statues and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you,' then you shall say to your son, 'We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.'" I just love that. I love that. That's a scriptural ambition to explain to our sons and daughters the meaning of the Lord's words and works. So we want to be a type of people like that who are so steeped in scripture that our highest priorities, our highest goals and desires, they just flow right out of the very word of God.

31:40And so in light of this particular word in Romans 15, I have three things that I want to urge you to do as we carry out this week of global focus. The first is this. I want to encourage you to meditate on the gospel obligation we have to the nations. Paul says in Romans 1:14, "I am under obligation." Or it could be translated, "I owe a debt, both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish, so I am eager to preach the gospel." What's Paul saying there? Paul's not saying he's under obligation to God. Paul doesn't owe God anything because grace is free. But he does feel like he has a debt to pay towards barbarians, towards Gentile sinners. As love is poured out on him in the gospel, he feels obligated by the generous showering of mercy to preach the gospel to those who do not have it yet.

32:46When we consistently reflect on the astounding grace of God to us in the gospel, we will feel not a heavy, demanding dead weight to carry out this mission, but the empowering pressure of love. Before Paul asks the Roman church to help him get to the lost in Spain, he expounds the gospel to them for 15 chapters. Why? Because he knows that the fuel for them participating in this missionary endeavor is the gospel itself. He writes to remind them that, as Romans 3 says, every one of them has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But they've been justified. They've been counted righteous before Him by His grace as a gift through the redemptive propitiation of Christ.

33:42And Paul wants them to be reinvigorated by that gospel, the gospel that has come to them and it has saved them, expecting that the love of God in Christ Jesus will compel this church to launch out to those peoples who have yet to hear the name of the one who can save them from their sins. And they launch out laborers out of love. Brothers and sisters, we've been given a free gift of grace and an outpouring of love from the Father through the sacrificial work of His Son. How can we now hoard this free gift of grace? The more we reflect on the gospel of grace, the more we will feel it is actually more of a burden to hold it in than to spread it out.

34:29Here's the second thing I would like to call us to this week. It's this. Consider your role personally, individually, in advancing Christ to the peoples of the earth who have yet to hear. There are a thousand good ways in which we might joyfully serve the Lord and His church. And so you might ask, of all the areas of ministry, why is it so important that we emphasize frontier missions? Why should I keep this at the forefront of my mind, even as I serve here in Minnesota in lots of good ways? And I'll give you three quick reasons. The first is this. This is where all of history is headed. God's redemptive work in the world will culminate with worshipers from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He is after and will obtain worldwide worship to magnify His supremacy.

35:24And the means He uses to secure the global people for whom Christ died is a church, a church that dispatches ministers to lay gospel foundations in spiritual wildernesses. And we want to be part of the mission that God is ultimately after in the world, and it's a mission that will not fail. The second reason we emphasize this vision for frontier missions is that in some measure, the initial groundbreaking work of preaching where Christ has never been named is the foundation. No other element of the Great Commission can be accomplished if we don't have this first act. Making disciples, planting churches, training leaders, helping the poor. None of this can happen unless it is built on the foundation of initial gospel groundwork being laid.

36:21All the good maturing ministry we appreciate and experience here at the North Church will never happen among the Bengalis or the Sheikh people of India or the Hausa people of Nigeria or the Sunda people of Indonesia unless some Christian enters among them and preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ. And finally, a third reason we emphasize planting churches where Christ has never been named is because hard work requires great intentionality. The people who have yet to hear of Christ, who live in places like China and Bangladesh and India and Afghanistan and Indonesia and Chad, they are the hardest peoples to get to and do this work among.

37:06And the foundation-laying work of evangelism and worldview apologetics and long-term relational building and strengthening new converts in the midst of persecution is some of the most taxing work in Christian ministry. We will not fulfill this work by coasting along and staying comfortable. If we are going to reach them, it will take a great degree of intentionality and emphasis, not just for the missionaries who go, but for the churches who stay, which is why we don't want to lose focus on this mission as a church. We must keep it at the forefront of our minds. And so I'm eager for us to reflect on how we might carry out a plethora of personal ministries in a way that promotes and facilitates the advance of the gospel where Christ is not. However the Lord has you serving, whispering prayers over babies in the nursery or greeting at the doors or evangelizing in your neighborhood or nurturing and discipling your children at home or giving generously.

38:08Whatever it is, I ask, do you see the ramifications and impact and connections your individual ministry has on advancing the name of Christ so that his glory covers the earth as the waters cover the sea? I'm not going to tell you all the ways those things connect, but they do. Paul shows us a little bit about how some of these ministries connect to this work. And so my homework assignment is consider how these personal investments you make might work in God's grand economy to fuel this global mission. And my final application is just one simple thing we can do this week, and that is to pray. Is to pray that God would raise up from our congregation, and dare I say it, as a father of six, even raise up children from our families who are gripped with this Pauline ambition to go and preach where Christ has not been named, to lay foundations to establish the church to the ends of the earth.

39:11So I'd love to close by doing exactly that and praying for this. So would you join me? Father in heaven, would you stir up even now in this moment some who are feeling a joyful obligation to preach Christ, not just here, but to a people group who have no other means of access to the gospel, to people who look around at creation and they know that a maker exists. They know they are without excuse before him, and yet they have no knowledge of the Christ who can free them from their sin and reconcile them to you. They're groping around in the dark. And so, Lord, we're pleading with you that The North Church would continue to be and grow in being a place where these ambitions are cultivated, a place where future church-planting missionaries can be equipped and sent to penetrate the darkest places in the world with the light of Christ.

40:11And would you do it for your glory? We ask in the name of Jesus, the glorious name which so many have yet to hear. Amen.

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