- [Narrator] We are called by God to share the whole gospel with the whole world. Rockpoint Reaching is each of us, it requires action from us and the need for belief to exist in us. The leaf in the power of the gospel and the high calling to share it. We are Rockpoint Reaching, providing clean water in Kenya, working for better healthcare opportunities in the Philippines, building new church steeples in New Orleans, volunteering time to see hundreds of children learn about Jesus through vacation Bible school or donating funds to help support missionaries as they bring the gospel to restricted places and a new languages. New hearts become a part of the Kingdom of God. We reach outside our walls as a church family for the purpose of bringing God glorious. He changes the hearts and lives of those in this world forever. Let's not slow down, let's look up, look out and ask God today, "What next?"

- Good morning Rockpoint.

- Good morning.

- It's great to be with you as always. Let me begin by telling you a story of a friend of mine named Elizabeth. As Elizabeth sat alone in the dark cold room, her mind went immediately to her young son, Shawan and hoped that he wouldn't be frightened by the absence of his mom and dad, especially during this time of year which was supposed to be all about family. The traditional new year celebration when millions of family members trek from wherever they're working and studying back home to be with their parents. Fortunately for little one, Elizabeth's parents were watching over him with all the due care that came from him being their only grandchild. Elizabeth was unsure exactly why she and her husband had been brought in for questioning. Now, during this holiday, this city had nothing to do with their gospel work in a distant city where they made their home. Elizabeth focused her ministry on meeting with house church leaders and equipping them to take the gospel to unreached minority groups within their own country. Those who had no access to Jesus Christ. Further, she equipped these same churches to send their own missionaries to the global places where they had unique access. Places like Muslim countries of central Asia, North Africa and the Middle East. But somehow, a word of her activities had made its way hundreds of kilometers back to her home province. The hard slap on her right cheek was a rude awakening to the seriousness of her situation. "We know what you're doing. We know you're helping the foreigners spread lies about our country. Why are you helping them?" "I don't know." A second slap on her. Her left cheek threw her head to the right. "Don't lie to us. We have your computer in your phone. Soon we will have the names and contact information of your co-conspirators." Her lip was now beginning to swell as were the tears in her deep brown eyes. "I've done nothing wrong. Where's my husband?" "Don't worry, we'll get to him. And don't forget about your son, I'm assuming you wanna see him again." Her three inquisitors took a brief moment to gather and whisper together in the corner of the room. And that welcome to interlude, she prayed, "Lord Jesus, I trust in you. Fill me with your spirit and your strength to endure whatever may come." For 10 more hours, Elizabeth would endure unending questions, threats, physical abuse, and then miraculously for some reason, she was released. She hadn't disclosed any of the names of her coworkers but it seemed the officials felt they had accomplished their goals, perhaps they'd been able to decrypt her laptop and phone. As far as she knew she had followed the security procedures she'd been taught and hopefully there was no trail to follow. Hopefully. Her interrogators certainly believed they had intimidated her enough to cause her to abandon what they called her quote superstitions. It would be another six hours before her husband would be released. His treatment and threats had been much more harsh but he too would not be deterred from proclaiming his Lord and savior Jesus Christ. So, what is it that would cause a young woman, a young mother, young wife to endure this kind of treatment knowing what's before her that easily she could just walk away. What would cause her and her husband to say, "No, we're going to keep going, we're going to continue this." It's because they felt they had a special unique place, a role to play in the fulfillment of Jesus' words in Matthew 24:14. "This gospel of the kingdom shall be proclaimed in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations. And then, the end will come." If you permit me this morning, we're gonna take of this verse and unpack it as our outline as we progress through our time together. And we're going to talk about the message, the gospel of the kingdom. Well, what does that mean? What is the gospel of the kingdom? Our method, the proclamation of the message in word and indeed, what does that mean? What's that look like? Our measure, the whole world, all nations. How far is it to go? How far is it to extend? And then our motive, the end will come, when we've done all this work, the end will come. The thing that we long for so much, when this was world all of its fallen as it's broken as its pain, its hurt is finally done and completely go, "Lord Jesus, come." The end will come. Our message is the gospel of the kingdom. So, we know the word gospel means good news. We know that, but what is this idea of the gospel of the kingdom? What's the content of what we're talking about here. Let me propose to us that at least these things, the victory of the cross and the resurrection. 1 John 3:8 says, "The son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil." I proposed to you it's the victory over Satan that he's brought. Victory over sin and victory over death. Let's unpack these pieces together. The writer of Hebrews in chapter two says this, "That through death, He, Jesus might render powerless him who had the power over death, that is the devil and my free those who through fear of death, were subject to slavery, all their lives." The one who had the power over all these things, the evil one is now powerless. He has no power over us because of Christ. Victory over Satan. Secondly, Paul writes in Romans 6, "Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him." With Christ. "In order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin for he who has died is freed from sin." I no longer have to be a slave to my passions, my flesh, these evil practices that I have in my life, these things that go on and on, I can be free. There's victory over these things. Here now, there can be victory. Victory over Satan, victory over sin. Then again, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, "But now Christ has been raised from the dead." There's victory over death. Christ has been raised from the dead. "The first fruits of those who are asleep. Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, Where is your sting?" A month ago or so, I had the very difficult task of doing the funeral service for my young nephew. He was 40 years old, died in the prime of life. Incredible young man, my oldest brother's only child. And in this service, we were sitting there and there's this large group of people who've come to to remember and to mourn at the service. And I know there's a large group there who have no understanding of Christ and who he is and hope in the gospel. And they're there and they're telling stories of memorial, of remembering Ryan the way he was and of the great young man that he was. And we grieved there and we told those stories. And yet at the same time because I've had conversations with my nephew, I know that he understood faith in Christ, he put his faith in Jesus Christ. And therefore, there was another message I could also proclaim at that time. It's that although yes, we remember him here, we also celebrate life. There's the hope in the gospel. Hope that he is now moment present with Jesus Christ. That is the hope of the gospel. That's the good news of the message of Christ. So that is what I was able to share as well. Oh yeah, we grieve but Paul says we don't grieve as those with no hope. Why? Because our hope is in Jesus Christ and that we know death has no power over us ultimately. Satan has no power over us, sin has no power over us, death has no power over us. That is the message of the victory of the cross. That is the message, the good news of the gospel that we take and we share. And then we say, "But Dave, I don't feel so victorious. I just got over COVID." Or, "This angered my family." Or, "There's loss at work." Or, "There's death in my family." Or there's whatever it could be. There's so many difficult things in life right now. And let me give you this illustration of what it could possibly help you to understand what we're talking about. Yes, Christ has defeated these things, the power's broken. Consider it this way, in World War II, there was D-Day, the landing of all of our allied troops on the beaches of Normandy. And then there was also VE Day which was the victory in Europe day. The ultimate end of the war. Historians will tell us though that as our troops landed on those beaches and sacrificed so greatly as the rest did, that moment, that victory on the beaches of Normandy, that is actually what brought the defeat. That moment, that action is what brought of Nazi Germany. That with a victory and moving forward off those beaches and into the land, that is the event that won the war. Now, that war would go on for another year. The power was broken at that moment but it would go on for another year to complete the task of many more lives lost unfortunately on and on. And it's the same as similar kind of thing here as we think about Christ. The power of Satan is broken, the power of sin is broken, the power of death is broken. And yet, in this world between the first coming and His second coming, we live in this world now where we're gonna keep doing this battle forward but there will come a day at the end when we will be moved from the presence of these things. Now the power is broken, then the presence. So, what are we to do now? What's going on here now? We have this message of the gospel of the kingdom but we also have a method then of how we're to do this. It says the gospel of the kingdom shall be proclaimed. Proclaimed, what does that look like? What does that mean? Jesus is our example here. It says, "He was going through all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness." Matthew 9. Jesus was going to the cities. He was getting into their neighborhoods. He was going to them where they are. He was teaching in their synagogues, that means he had to know their language, their culture, their hopes, their dreams, their ills, their hurts, all these stories. He was part of their culture. He was getting into their business. He was going to where they are and he was getting into their life. He was getting dirt under his fingernails in his life with them. It says, "He's proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom." He says, "I'm here, I've come. I am the way, the truth and the life. I am the resurrection and the life. I'm here, come to me." But it wasn't just him proclaiming and speaking these words out, He was also demonstrating compassionately. It says he was healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. He was showing them a demonstration of what the kingdom could be really like. He was, "These are not just my words, this is what God in my heart is like." As he was touching them and engaged compassionately in their life with the verbal gospel. Not only that though, we the church are to proclaim these good news. 2 Corinthians 5 says, "God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, He gave us the ministry of reconciliation. He's committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. We beg you." Paul says, "On behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." He's got his message and Paul says, "I beg you. I beg you come to Christ. I beg you to embrace this good news that there's victory over Satan. There's a victory over sin. There's victory over death. Come, come to Christ." In fact, so much that Jesus gave his disciples, not just one but five commissions to go and take this message to the nations. We're most familiar with this first one, Matthew 28:19-20. We call it the great commission. But in each of the gospels, He also expresses His commissioning to His disciples to go to the nations. "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations." It says in Matthew 28. Mark 16:15 adds to this, "Go into most of the world and proclaim the gospel to the..." Is that what it says? No, so, sorry. It says, "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation." Luke 24, the last sentence here, it says, "Repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name." To where? All the nations And you know as well as I do that, that term as you've had great teaching here is not talking about lines on a map, it's talking about the ethni. So, we're gonna read ethnic from the peoples, the tribes, the languages, all these ethnic groups globally around the world. In John 20:21, Jesus says to them, to his disciples, "As the father has sent me, even so I'm sending you church." And Acts1:8 finally, "You'll receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Sumeria to the end of the earth." The message is simple. Jesus' words. "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word, and believes him who sent Me, has eternal life, does not come into judgment, has passed from death to life." These are truth statements. True statements from the from the lips of Jesus. "He who hears my word and believes in me." He says, "Put their trust in me, their reliance on me as their savior. Put your trust in me, you have eternal life. You won't come into judgment. You've passed from death to life." That is good news, yes? Say yes.

- [Congregation] Yes.

- Amen, it is. That's the good news. Dr. Michael Frost will share a moment here in a video. Scenes of coming attractions that were not to just proclaim this verbally but also there's something that's so attractive about our life. As people watch us, the church between the first coming and the second coming, they see the church in action proclaiming this good news but also living it so truthfully, so wonderfully, giving these foretastes of what's really like to come be part. I would beg you to come and be part of this incredible journey with Christ. Watch this video of what he explains

- He's the best modern day explanation I can make of it. When you go to the cinema or the theater as you guys call it, when you go to the theater and you see a movie and they always play trailers of upcoming features, right? You sit there and the trailers run one after the other one. Just watch, don't watch the trailers, just watch people sit in the back row if you like and watch what people do after each trailer. After each trailer has just been played, people turn to each other and they say, "Do you want to see that?" Or "That looks good?" Which is what a trailer is meant to do, Isn't it? It's meant to create a little taste of the movie which is to come. It's meant to put all the best explosions or the funniest lines or the rose romantic moments in the trailer so that you want to see more. And you also know some trailers really cheat you because they are the only funny lines. Well, I want you to imagine that the regeneration of all the things that Jesus spoke of, they're in the age to come when the kingdom breaks through completely and utterly. Not fitfully, not mysteriously but total and complete. I want you to imagine that is the most amazing blockbuster movie that you've ever seen. What your job folks to do is to be a trailer for that upcoming feature. So, people are supposed to read your life or not just yours individually, but your community's life. They're meant to look at the justice and the peace and the goodness and the mercy and the kindness. They're meant to see the truth and the announcement. And they're meant to say, "Do you wanna see that? Do you wanna see more of that?"

- Isn't that exciting? You want to see more of that? Do you wanna see more of that. That's what our lives are to be like. We're proclaiming the gospel in word and indeed and they're going, "What's going on over there? You want to see that? Let's go see what's going on there." So, let's see what's going on over there at Rockpoint, let's go see what's going on in that business over there, that home over there, that neighborhood over there, whatever it might be because you're giving authentic foresight for foretastes of the kingdom to come. Not living perfectly, but giving this taste. The savory life that you're living of the gospel. David Platt though, in this idea says, "Working to provide clean water, medical clinics, care for orphans, rescued from slavery and all sorts of other earthly suffering is extremely significant." How significant is it? Extremely significant, all right, hear me say that. "Yet," he says, "ministry that addresses eternal suffering is infinitely more important. No water filter, food program, medical clinic or slavery rescue operation will by itself get anyone into heaven. Over and above all these physical needs is the need for reconciliation with God, and that need can be met only when the gospel is proclaimed." Now, I promise you I've had conversations with the holistic ministries that this church supports and is part of, and they are vital. And yet every one of them will tell you our work alone must be combined with the proclamation of the gospel, with the verbal gospel that's there. Everything that we do matches together for this platform to give us this word, this opportunity to show compassion, mercy in Christ absolutely. And yet we must share and present the verbal gospel of Jesus Christ. There's one more thing that you and I get to do though. It's not just to proclaim victory over Satan, sin and death. There's more we get to do. As part of this proclamation and demonstration, we get to pray into situations rebelliously. You may never thought about it that way but our prayer actually gets to do some incredibly rebellious things. Rebel here this morning while you are, all right. Let's do what would Professor David Wells shares praying for others. "What then is the nature of petitionary prayer? In essence, it is rebellion. Rebellion against the status quo, the state of the world in its sin and fallenness. It is the absolute and undying refusal to accept as normal, what is completely abnormal. It is the rejection of every agenda, every scheme, every opinion that clashes with the norms that God originally established." Michelle and I have a young young man who we've known since his birth actually. Today, he's in his early thirties, he's struggling with bone cancer. And we grieve for his situation, incredible young man and yet we pray into his life rebelliously. We go, "God, I don't know what you're doing here but I pray in your mercy, in your power, in your kingship that you would heal this young man." I prayed that is a prayer. That is a prayer of rebellion because this is not the way life's supposed to be. This is not the way it's created to be. "God, your glory reign Lord, you're doing things for your glory ultimately but I pray in my rebellious spirit, not against you but against this darkness, that you would enter it." We pray in so many other ways, we pray that right now for the peace of Jerusalem, peace of Israel, pray for the Palestinians, pray for those others that are all there. We're praying God, bring your presence here to this place. Bring grace and mercy and salvation to this place. This hurt, this anger that's here right now. I'm gonna pray as a rebel into this place God. Or the Lord's prayer that you've grown up with so simply your whole life. "Our father who art in heaven." That alone back in that culture of that day was a rebellious prayer to say that God is our father, right? That alone would get you in a lot of hot water. "Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name." We used to think, God just be wholly up there. But no, that's not what the prayer is about. The prayer is about, "Holy your name, God. Holy your name here in this place. You make your name holy here. Not in some distant kingdom in the future but here now bring your presence, your king, your reign, your authority, your power now. Our father is in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven." He's saying the word kingdom isn't just about this place in the future, it's about his rule, his reign, his kingship Now, in this place, Jesus saying, "Be a rebel. I don't know what God will do." He says, "But pray into this thing. Pray for righteousness, pray for justice, pray for mercy, pray for grace, ray for salvation. For these people that are hurting." That's what we get to do too. We proclaim the gospel of the kingdom and we pray into gospel situations. What a privilege. The measure then. We have this message, we have a method for getting it proclaimed and we have a measure, "The gospel of the kingdom shall be proclaimed in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations." So, how are we doing now? Now there's a lot of information on this slide here. Let me maybe break it down for us. This upper right portion here, that green, that big C there, that's the portion of the world that today if you'd ask them, they'd say, "We are Christians." They'd say, "Yes, we are." Now, they're not all true believers in Jesus Christ but culturally or whatever they've grown up this way. So, about a third of the world if you ask them, they'd say, "Yes, we're Christians." And you can see there's this 72% here. That's the world missionary force that we've produced that's out there getting the work done out there as missionaries full time. 72% of those focused though on that C part of the world, that green shaded part of the world there. You can see down here, the bottom, this B section at the very bottom, about 40% of the world has access to the gospel but it shows us not to follow Jesus. They have Bibles in their language, churches that they're close by to them, friends that are probably Christians or co-workers, have access to other media on the internet or whatever else like that in their languages. And we send currently 25% of our missionary force to reach into them, to keep taking the gospel to them, to keep preaching to them. But in the upper left hand corner here, this red shaded group up here, that's about 30% of the world approximately. Again, they have no chance to hear the good news. They they're the unreached, they have no access to the gospel, no Bible, no churches, no believers nearby. We send 3% of our missionary force currently to that age group up there. So, it's worth to keep unpacking this a little bit. Now, how are we doing? Look at this, some amazing things that are going on here in our worlds for as far as what that the gospel is on move. God is on the move across the world. In 1910, there were an estimated 600 million Christians worldwide. Today, there are an estimated 2.2 billion Christians in the world. Now and again, they're not maybe all believer but they if you ask them and their culture, they'll say, "Yeah, I'm a follower of Christ. I know Jesus is." Today, there are scripture portions in over 3,400 languages representing 7 billion people. Now, it's not complete Bibles and all that about 700 complete Bibles in those languages, 700 languages with Bibles, others with new testaments and others with portions but God is on the move again to take his word to the nations and we have great missionaries here that we're supporting to see that take place here at Rockpoint. The number added to the body of Christ worldwide every day average is 174,000 people, coming to faith in Jesus Christ every single day. That's amazing. 3,500 new churches are opening every week worldwide. Somewhere in the world today, churches are opening. 3,500 every single week. And here's the statistic that will just rock your world. More Muslims have come to faith in Christ in the last 10 years. More Muslims have come to faith in the last 10 years than in the previous 1000 years. God is on the move. Isn't that amazing? God is on the move in nations like Iran. Politically it's difficult to talk about that country I know in different ways but the bottom line is there is a gospel movement that is on fire across that country, across the people of Persia and across other places, Indonesia, across other places that we can talk about. God is on the move taking the gospel globally to all these places. So, how are we doing? Financially, we give $700 billion to Christian nonprofits, churches, youth programs, and missions. $45 billion is given to mission specifically but 87% of that missions dollar goes to that green portion, that C, 12% goes to that yellow there, those who have yet to say yes to Jesus but they have access to the materials and only 1% goes to that A group up there who has no access to the gospel. So, we've got some work to do there. Here's another fun slide though. We have still some hurdles we've got to get over. One is this little puppy dog on the lower left there, I love those guys. A little Yorkie, I love those. They're cute little dogs on earth. They guys love bumblebee up it on there but here's the problem. We spend more on Halloween costumes as Christians for our pets than we give to missions. All right, that's a hurdle we've got to get over. A little over 6% of our money is that there's as much embezzled from the church as is given to missions actually, that's a hurdle we got to get over, right. And here's a big one for us. Not for this church, this church has great Bible teaching but the Barna group asked this question, "Have you heard of the great commission of church goers?" 51% said, "I have no idea what you're talking about." 25% said, "Yeah, I think I've heard the great commission but I'm not really sure." Now again, this church does amazing Bible teaching from the pulpit. We have Rockpoint reaching, we have all this great momentum moving this way but most churches, you got to realize all of them aren't like this. This is a very unique opportunity. So, that's a hurdle we've got to get over and we're gonna do it. We're going to get over that hurdle. Now, in the world today, that red section, that red part of that diagram represents about 3 billion people who have yet to hear the gospel. Again, we sent 3% of our missionaries there. 1% of our mission dollars to that red zone, right. And so, we have two options. How are we going to reach out to those guys? We can go or send. Now 25 plus years ago, you sent Michelle and I to the other side of the world to work with house church leaders to help them send their own missionaries to reach the unreached in their community and their populations. This picture represents a picture of a hill I was actually standing on there, seeing in this province of about 40 million people, mountain and valley and mountain and valley as far as I could see and each tribe was representing each valley. Each valley and mountain top with a different group with a different language, a different culture again and again and again as far as I could see. And I was not even allowed to go out to those places as a westerner, I wasn't even allowed access out there. So, who could go out there? Who's the best person to raise up equipment send to go? Where was those local leaders there that we're meeting with to help them get a passion to help them get an understanding of the need to even go to do these things? And that's what we focused our attention on doing. So, there had to be a handoff of the Baton of mission from us, from the west to the rest. The mission field needed to become a mission force and that's we work to do in our ministry today. You may not understand this but 80% of the evangelical church in the world doesn't live, does not live in north America or Europe. All right. 80% of the evangelical church in the world lives in Asia, Africa and Latin America but they only send 20% of the world's missionaries. And very, very few of those go to the unreached. Here there's great group of Christians here who are just unmetabolized, they're just unmoved yet to take their great resources to reach the unreached. The CMM organization that I lead, that's what we do. The Center for Mission Mobilization. We exist for this purpose. To mobilize the global church to send their own missionaries to reach the unreached. We help them get resources and training equipping to produce their own missionaries, prepare their own missionaries and provide financially and carefully for their own missionaries to reach the unreached. This map will show you our passions to move the church from the green to the red. The green in countries there are where there's a million or more evangelical Christians. The red is where there are 5 million or more unreached peoples in those zones, those places there. And so, we wanna move the church from the green to the red but what you can notice here also though is that there's a Stripe there in some of these countries. This is an example from Sub-Sahara Africa. In this far right one here, on the horn of Africa, you see Ethiopia. Ethiopia has 20 million evangelical Christians in it. And yet right next door, you see what? That is Somalia right there. And mixed within Ethiopia are millions of Somali Muslims mixed within their population. So, who's best to go and reach Somali Muslims? Well, it's Ethiopian Christians but they just haven't been moved yet to do that. It's always been the Western missionaries who are supposed to go and do missions and do outreach but yet the church there is now on the move. Same thing in Kenya. In Kenya today, 20 million Christians in Kenya. In the great city of Nairobi, there's a flourishing church, flourishing church and yet just next door in Nairobi, there are 400,000 Somali Muslims who're untouched with the gospel. Why is that? Because this church in Nairobi hasn't been moved yet to cross over that border, to cross over that street actually. To go and build those relationships. That's what we do. We come alongside those churches in Asia, Africa, Latin America, China to say, "Let's help you raise up your own missionaries to go and reach these unreached places." And oftentimes, they're right next door where they have similar language, similar culture, similar opportunity to go to those places. Places I can't go as a westerner. I'm not allowed to go to 60% of the places where the unreached people live, I'm not even allowed access to that place. So, who will take the baton? It's that national indigenous church. So, what we do is we come alongside those churches that are there to help them discover God's heart for nations to help them develop their practices of praying, giving, going, welcoming, and mobilizing. Helping them become disciples prepared to go to the nations and then we help them deploy through indigenous sending mission agencies, help those agencies get strengthened and stronger to go to the unreached. So from churches to discover, develop, deploy all the way through that process. This last year, we equipped over 30,000 individuals in those churches to go through this process and saw 2,600 deployed into to God's harvest as harvest workers into the field. That's what we do today to help them take the baton of gospel mission. So, our motive, we have our message, the gospel, the kingdom, we have our method proclamation, we have our measure, all nations, the whole world and then we have now this motive. The gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations and then the end will come. Well, here's the thing. I don't know when that is. I don't know when the last person's gonna be reached. I don't know when that's going to happen. God only knows literally, right. Jesus was answering this question to his disciples, "Then what's gonna happen, Lord?" And his answer was Matthew 24. "When all these things have happened this gospel has been proclaimed, then the end will come." And so in my theology, my eschatology, I may not even be here, I don't know. I think maybe either God's gonna take me home in one way or the other, right. I don't know, the rapture or something could happen like that. My job regardless is to say, "I'm either going to help get it done and prepare the way so if I'm gone, workers can keep working." Those who come to faith later can keep moving forward, right. Or if I'm wrong in my theology, then I'm just gonna keep working. We're just going to keep trying, keep working hard to see these things happen. But at some point, this is gonna be done. And so we work now faithfully, diligently, Lord Jesus. Come, Lord Jesus. We're going to work till it's done. There's a picture here of our friend in who painted this beautiful portrait of what was on the mind of Christ perhaps. There, He's being whipped as he's suffering and then he's on the cross. Paul talks about how his blood purchased men from every tribe, nation and tongue in Revelation 5:9 and then, that's the cross, that's 2000 years ago. And perhaps what was on his mind was looking forward though to that day in Romans 7:9 around the throne when people from every tribe, nation and tongue would be around that throne worshiping them lamb. I don't know. But those are the things that what was on the mind of Christ. Is that what's on our mind today? To see what Christ went through. His suffering to purchase people from every tribe, nation, tongue. And what are we doing today to work toward that end? The writer of Hebrews says this in Hebrews 12. "Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross." What might be that joy set before him? Might it be those nations that he purchased who'd be worshiping? "Consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." Grow weary and lose heart from doing what? Proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. Living that foretaste, those scenes of coming attractions. Don't give up between the cross and the second coming. Don't give up, keep living it, keep proclaiming it. David Platt shares this again. "There's really only one thing worse than being lost. What's worse is being lost when no one is trying to find you?" "This gospel of the kingdom shall be proclaimed in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come." What about Elizabeth? Well, I've got good news for you. She's a fireball. She's still going. She will not be deterred. Justice last week, she and our team in that country went and we're doing trainings among house church networks in another city, still going strong, understands the persecution, understand the price to be paid and that they will not be deterred from mobilizing the church to send missionaries to the unreached, that's her part to play in that verse, to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom to all nations. What's your part? God has a part for you to play as well. I don't know what it'll be to pray, to give, to go, to welcome the strangers among us, to mobilize others, whatever it might be. I pray that you would not grow weary and lose heart. Let me pray for us. Father, thank you again for the privilege of being here at Rockpoint, this great church. I pray that we would clearly understand the message of the gospel that we have victory over Satan, victory over sin, victory over death and we have this amazing thing we can do with rebellious prayer. And that we know that there is also there's this message that we're to proclaim it in word and indeed to all nations, Lord and then the end shall come. Make it so in Jesus' name, Amen.