I'm going to ask you to stand just
for a moment.
I don't need to ask you to turn
to the Word of God because it's such
a familiar passage, and you'd have to sit
down to pick up your Bible anyway.
But in reverence to the Word of God,
I want you to be standing as I
read just a few verses from the twelfth
chapter of Romans.
The twelfth chapter of Romans.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that you present your bodies a
living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is
your reasonable service.
And be not conformed to this world, but
be ye transformed by the renewing of your
mind, that you may prove what is that
good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Let love be without hypocrisy.
Abhor that which is evil.
Cling to that which is good.
Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly
love in honor of preferring one another.
Not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving
the Lord.
May God add His blessing to the reading
of His own Word.
Shall we be seated?
The epistle to the Romans has been described,
as I said the other night, as the
cathedral of the Christian faith.
And while there are much more intimate and
intricate analyses that I could give you on
this great epistle, the major sweep of the
epistle is, as you know, chapters one through
eight, is the salvation of God, or God's
salvation.
Chapters nine, ten, and eleven, the sovereignty of
God, God's sovereignty in relation especially to His
ancient people, the Jews.
Then chapters twelve to the end, in general,
the service of God, the service of God.
And here in this wonderful passage I have
just read, we have the priority of service
in those opening verses.
We've got to bring our lives, as we
heard so beautifully in my favorite, favorite song
on service, that Ron Owens anywhere or anytime
ever sings, and that is surrender, surrender.
I beseech you therefore, brother, by the mercies
of God, that you present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is
your reasonable service or your spiritual worship.
And service and worship are indistinguishable in many
ways in Scripture, for worship is service, and
service is worship in God's view.
That's the priority.
Not only the dedication of our lives, the
transformation of our lives, but the realization of
our lives in His good and acceptable and
perfect will.
Then you get what is called the unity
of service, where you see a whole church,
the whole membership spoken of, being united there
in these verses.
And then flowing from that priority and unity,
you have what I call the ministry of
service, and the listing of those gifts which
are a study in and of themselves.
But tonight, in the light of that great
music tonight, and the testimony and challenge we
heard just now, I want to just pick
up those words with which I concluded the
reading and bring them to you from my
heart as the closing message, the crisis of
activity.
In the New King James Version it reads,
Don't let your diligence lag, or don't lag
in your diligence.
Notice the word diligence.
Then, fervent in spirit.
Then, serving the Lord.
Three clauses.
Don't lag in diligence, be fervent in spirit,
serve the Lord.
If I were to give my message another
title, it would be Saved to Serve.
Have you ever asked yourself the question, why
on earth didn't God take you to heaven
the moment you were saved?
It would relieve you of a lot of
anxiety and problems and trials, wouldn't it?
I get saved, born again, and right away,
raptured to heaven.
Why has he left you down here?
Why has he left you here on planet
earth?
Answer, to serve.
To serve.
In all the embrace and sense of that
word, to serve.
It may be to serve as a housewife
and a mother, as a businessman, as an
educator, as a barrister at law.
It may be at home or abroad, in
foreign missions, in translating, in building, in medical
work, or in planting churches.
But we have been saved to serve, all
with a view to evangelize the world and
hasten the coming of the Lord Jesus.
For when the last soul is saved, whether
it be in this auditorium tonight, or in
Thailand, or in the oppression of China tonight,
when that last soul is saved, and those
whom God has purposed to be the church
has been completed, there will be the shout,
the voice of the archangel, and the trump
of God, and there'll be operation liftoff.
We're saved to serve.
Saved to serve.
Now, in the simplest fashion, I want to
zero in on this text and take those
three clauses and speak on three aspects of
what is our theme tonight, the crisis of
activity.
Number one, I want you to notice that
it is faithful service.
Faithful service that God wants from you tonight.
Faithful service.
Not lagging in diligence.
I cannot underscore that word faithful enough.
We live in the day of celebrity.
We live in the day of so-called
success.
Some are so caught up in the success
syndrome that they don't even see the failure.
But when the bottom line has been written,
and when we stand before the judgment seat
of Christ, if we have served faithfully, that's
going to bring a smile on our Savior's
face.
He won't say, enter into the joy of
your Lord, successful servant, but rather, enter into
the joy of the Lord, you faithful servant.
You have been faithful.
Now, I welcome you with joy.
Faithfulness.
Faithfulness in the midst of opposition, hostility.
Faithful when you're on the mountaintop.
Faithful when you're in the valley.
Faithful when you've got a group around you,
really supporting you.
Faithful when you stand absolutely alone and have
to say with the Apostle Paul, everybody has
left me.
Everybody has left me.
And he's writing to Timothy, everybody has left
me.
Notwithstanding this, the Lord stood by me.
Faithful.
It's got your Bible right there.
I want you to flip right back quickly
to chapter twenty-one of Exodus.
Chapter twenty-one of Exodus.
Just for a moment.
Many scholars believe that when Paul uses that
phrase, serving the Lord, like so many passages
in Romans, he was thinking of the Old
Testament.
And in chapter twenty-one, we learn of
service.
Faithful service.
In verse two we read, if you buy
a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve,
and in the seventh he shall go out
free.
Go out free.
And then a beautiful touch is introduced.
If he come in by himself, he shall
go out by himself.
If he was married, his wife shall go
out with him.
If his master hath given him a wife,
and she hath borne him sons and daughters,
the wife and her children, and that which
was his master's, shall go out by himself.
Now then, verse five.
If the servant shall plainly say, I love
my master.
I love my master.
I love my wife and my children.
I will not go out free.
Then his master shall bring him unto the
judges, and shall bring him to the door,
even unto the doorpost.
And his master shall bore his ear through
with an oar, and he shall serve him
forever.
I think that's one of the most beautiful
pictures.
Beautiful picture.
Here we have the picture of faithful service.
Here's a man who can go out free.
He has served six years.
The seventh is the year of jubilee.
He can go out free, take his wife
and children.
But a bond, a bond has been formed
between master and servant.
And the servant says, no, I don't want
to go out free.
I don't want to go out free.
And three things characterize faithful service here.
First of all, he shall plainly say, the
judges are gathered, the people of God stand
around, and before the judges he plainly says,
I'm alive, I am speaking, these are my
eyes, this is my brain, these are my
lips, these are my hands with which I
want to serve my master.
I want it plainly to be understood that
I am my master.
Living service.
And then he says, I'm not going to
go out free.
I love my master.
I will not go out free.
And at that point, a little ritual, a
ceremony was performed where the slave or servant
was brought to the doorpost of his master's
house.
And an instrument was used called an awl,
and the earlobe of the servant was punctured
and, listen, literally nailed to the doorpost with
an awl.
And as the blood burst, and as that
scar remained, it was known by everybody that
he was a servant of his master in
love forever.
Forever.
Living service, faithful.
Loving service, faithful.
And lasting service, for it says right in
the passage, he shall serve forever.
Forever.
Faithful.
Do you know that's what your master did?
Your divine master.
He said, Lo, I come in the volume
of the book it is written of me,
to do your will, O my God.
Thy will is within my heart.
And it wasn't his ear that was pierced,
though that is mentioned in Psalm 22.
But his hands were pierced.
His feet were pierced.
His side was pierced.
His brow was pierced.
He served faithfully until he could cry, Finished!
Finished.
In a day of laziness and shallowness and
superficiality of service, O, for this faithful service.
Faithful service.
And after a week of ministry such as
we've had, I want you to make a
resolve here tonight that, Lord, above everything, I
want to be found faithful.
I want to be found faithful as a
living, loving, and lasting servant, doing your good
and acceptable and perfect will.
You're saved to serve.
And what we're talking about tonight is faithful
service.
But I want you to notice, secondly, and
especially in the light of what I had
to say last night, it is fervent service.
I don't want any, any dull-looking faces
here tonight.
I want you to be able to go
out, serve the Lord with gladness.
And even as I'm speaking now, I want
to see a break of light on your
faces.
Because what He wants is not only faithful
servant, but fervent servant.
Because it says, not lagging in diligence, that's
faithfulness, fervent in spirit.
Fervent in spirit.
Our word for that, we'll exegete it in
a moment from Scripture, our word for that
is the word enthusiasm.
Many of you have said that I am
pretty enthusiastic preaching.
In fact, a lot of people have been
holding their breath in case I drop dead
sometime during preaching here.
Well, that's how it's got to be until
the end.
I remember when I went to Mayo Clinic,
when I had some heart condition that precipitated
by leaving Calvary Baptist Church, and that's the
only reason I ever left that church, otherwise
I'd be there today.
But I had to leave because of this
condition.
They graciously made me minister emeritus for life,
but nevertheless, I went to my cardiologist there
at Mayo, and I said, well, what's the
news?
He said, you've got to leave.
I said, leave what, Calvary?
I said, not in your life.
All right, he said, what do you want,
a coffin or a pulpit?
I said, like that?
He said, yes.
You've got to leave.
It takes seven months to normalize in any
case, but he said, I want to tell
you something.
I want to tell you something.
We can never change your style of preaching
because the moment we change that style, we
have destroyed your personality and what God wants
for you through you.
You are a virile, vigorous preacher, that's how
you're going to be all the way through.
And in any case, we live in a
day of such dry and dusty kind of
preaching, it's by time we had some enthusiasm.
That word has been borrowed by the world
and they don't deserve it.
Why?
Because you know what that word means?
It comes from two Greek words.
Entheos.
It means to be full of God, to
be possessed of God.
Enthusiasm is being full of God.
There may be some people who have been
a little bit annoyed and irritated at the
way I preach and all the rest of
it and they've left and felt, goodness me,
what has he got so worked up about?
I want to remind those people whether they're
here tonight or didn't, come back again.
I hope they're hearing what I'm saying where
they are.
You can go to a baseball game and
shout your voice hoarse and nobody criticizes that.
And that's a stupid game.
And I'm a sportsman and I love all
games, but it's a stupid game.
Cracking that little ball, never getting the ball
back and wasting taxpayers' money and all the
rest of it.
I mean, you can go to a football
game and watch these guys with body contact
break their backs and skulls and everything else
and scream and say, listen, isn't that terrific?
Listen, what's terrific about chasing a bit of
pigskin?
I play golf and I love golf.
It's the only biblical game there is.
But like a little German girl who said
between Alan Redpath and I at breakfast time
in his home she'd come over to learn
English and was in their home and Al
and I were excitedly talking about a baseball
game.
No, a golfing game we were about to
play.
She said, I think he's completely stupid.
You take wee ball, big luggage on your
back, you walk through the medals, you hit
ball, lose it, look for it all day.
I think he's completely stupid.
Beloved, enthusiasm.
When I get up here and preach, you
watch Leonard Bernstein.
Watch him conduct an orchestra at Carnegie Hall
as I did many times with Van Cliburn,
member of our church at the great piano.
And there wasn't a hair in place.
I mean, his tie was crooked, sweating tight,
breaking his arms around as if he was
fighting with himself.
Nobody quarreled about that.
But when we talk about eternal things, lift
up the Lord Jesus Christ and preach our
eternal truth, people say it's emotionalism.
That makes me mad.
We're to be faithful in service.
We're to be servant in service.
The word actually means boiling.
Just the simple kitchen word, boiling, boiling.
It was used of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He was the most enthusiastic man that ever
came to planet Earth.
And when he drove those people out of
the temple with a whip and said, listen,
get out of here, don't make my father's
house a den of thieves, the disciples stood
back and couldn't get over the anger and
enthusiasm and zeal that he showed.
He said to them, haven't you ever read
your Bibles?
The zeal of God's house has eaten me
up.
That's our word right here in the text.
Same word.
Titus, Titus, the epistle of Paul to Titus
tells us that we are redeemed and cleansed
from all iniquity that we might be unto
God as zealous people full of good works.
Same word.
And within this servancy are two concepts we
have in the New Testament we were really
talking about last night.
Only the Holy Spirit can do this.
What creates steam?
What makes a kettle boil?
Well, obviously, fire.
And H02, water.
In a wonderful sense, the Holy Spirit represents
both.
He is the fire and He's the fullness.
John said, I baptize you with water, but
there comes one after me whose shoes I
am not worthy to bear.
He shall baptize you with fire.
And the Holy Spirit, and although we know
that there is a projection of prophecy concerning
that beyond our time, I remember that on
the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit
came upon those disciples, He came in the
semblance of fire.
Fire.
And incidentally, fire like tongues.
And they went out with enthusiasm and spoke
the wonderful works of God.
Nobody could shut them up.
In fact, they stood back and said, these
people are crazy.
They are dead drunk.
Peter said, you're crazy.
The pubs aren't open yet.
This is, this is the Holy Spirit.
It's only the ninth hour.
Fire.
Was it D.L. Moody who said, set
the pulpit on fire.
People come to watch it burn.
Have you fired in your stomach?
Have you fired in your bones?
Have you fired in your tongue?
Have you fired in your service?
Are you fired up?
Fired up.
And I want to talk to a lot
of older people here.
There's no age, there's no age that you
can reach where you cannot be fervent in
spirit, serving the Lord.
It's not the age to calm down.
It's the age to fire up.
The fire of the Spirit.
But where the fire of the Spirit, there's
the fullness of the Spirit.
And we needn't say any more than to
remind you that that's what I was talking
about last night.
Be filled and go on being filled with
the Spirit.
That, fervency in service.
So we're saved to serve.
And our service is to be faithful.
I've made my point there.
It's to be fervent.
I've made my point there.
But my burden tonight in these closing moments
is the third aspect of our subject.
Service is to be faithful.
Service is to be fervent.
But thirdly, service is to be focused.
Focused.
Will you notice the third clause?
Not lagging in zeal.
Not lagging in diligence.
Fervent in spirit.
Serving what?
The Lord.
Serving the Lord.
And here is where I want you to
follow me very closely.
We close this service and in the light
of the statistics we heard just now and
the desperate need, I want us to look
at this very carefully.
What is the focus of service?
All service.
All service if you're a believer.
All service.
Number one, the person of Christ.
The person of Christ.
Serving the Lord.
Writing to the Colossians and addressing slaves, if
you please, slaves who are sometimes, sometimes subject
to the greatest possible cruelty from their masters.
Paul says without qualifying it at all, he
says this, whatever you do, do it heartily
as to the Lord.
And then he adds, for you serve the
Lord Christ.
And as you leave this place tonight, don't
forget the text you've watched all week, for
me to live is Christ.
But I also want you to see it
in a little different way.
For me to serve is Christ.
Whatever you do, do it heartily as unto
the Lord, for it is the Lord Christ
whom you serve.
His person.
Wherever you are, whatever you're doing in the
kitchen, in the shop, or if the Lord
sends you from these shores to other lands,
as I trust He will after tonight, it's
the Lord.
It's the Lord.
It's the Lord that I serve.
Here is a slave being beaten because of
vindictiveness.
But he is to rise from those lashes
and serve his Master as unto the Lord.
All he sees is the Lord.
The Lord.
Focused service.
The person of Christ.
But secondly, I want you to notice focused
service, the purpose of Christ.
The purpose of Christ.
You say to me, what is the purpose
of all life?
Well, the Catechism puts it perfectly.
Man's chief end is to glorify God and
to enjoy Him forever.
I want to change that just for tonight.
Man's chief end is to glorify God and
to serve Him forever.
I want to read some verses to you
for the sake of time.
I won't ask you even to turn to
them.
Listen to this.
Whatsoever ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye
do, now then, say it all with me,
do all to the glory of God.
Do all to the glory of God.
And then Paul adds two verses of great
significance.
He says, don't give any offense to Jews,
to Greeks, to the Church of God, which
is sheer universality.
Gentiles and Greeks represent one section.
Jews, the other section.
The Church, the other section.
Nothing is more comprehensive in all of Scripture
than that statement.
And he says, don't give any offense.
And then he says, even as I please
all men in all things, not seeking mine
own profit, but the profit of many, that
they might be saved.
You say to me, Stephen Alford, what is
life's greatest purpose?
I'll tell you what it is.
And Paul tells us how we glorify God.
It's very simple.
By living holy lives, giving no offense.
Living a life that's transparent and holy, giving
no offense.
Putting no stumbling block in anybody's way or
life.
Holy living.
And secondly, helpful living.
He says, I live not even to please
myself or to profit myself.
I only live for others that they might
be saved.
Holy living, helpful living.
That is living to the glory of God.
So I serve His person, focused service.
I serve His purpose, holy and helpful living.
That's the purpose.
But I want to say something much more
important.
Focused service is not serving only His person.
That is basic, and we all know that.
Not only His purpose for the glory of
God, holy and helpful living.
But serving His program.
And God has only one program in Jesus
Christ until He comes back again.
A program that's never been rescinded.
You'll read about it at the end of
Matthew.
You'll read about it at the end of
John.
You'll read about it at the end of
Mark.
You'll read about it at the end of
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
And you'll read about it at the very
beginning of Acts.
It's what we call the commission.
And perhaps the fullest statement of it is
that 28th of Matthew where Jesus said, All
authority has been given unto me in heaven
and in earth as you go.
Literally the Greek is as you go.
As you actually go.
Make disciples of all nations baptizing them into
the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit teaching them
to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded
you and lo!
I am with you always even unto the
consummation of the age.
What is focused service?
Faithful.
To His person.
To His purpose.
For the glory of God.
To His program.
What is that program?
To put it very simply.
First, to bring men and women to Christ.
To bring men and women to Christ.
As you go make disciples of all nations.
And I want anybody to rise from this
congregation and tell me from the Scriptures that
that's only relegated to the few.
That is to say, to those who are
pastors or evangelists.
No way.
This is a commission to the entire church.
And I cannot, if you're a housewife, with
three kids or six kids, I don't care
if you're a businessman, I don't care where
you are or what you do, you must
be part and parcel of that program of
bringing people to Christ.
It may involve raising money to support the
missionary that you ought to be.
But since you can't go, you're sending somebody
else in your stead.
And you're going to undergird them.
You know that our brother, our brother who
spoke tonight, belongs to CAM International, and they
have right now forty couples, forty couples, who've
come forward in meetings like this, who've surrendered
their lives, who've done language study, who've prepared
to go to the mission field, and they're
sold out to God to go, and not
one of them can go out.
Why?
Because there's no support.
We're living in the meanest hour of American
giving now, right now, in this hour.
And by 1992, it's going to be worse
and less.
The younger generation know how to give.
Do you know who's the peak giver in
this country today?
Seventy-one years of age.
All youngsters, yuppies, are buying their cars, they're
buying their boats, they're buying their holiday homes,
they're getting swanky clothes.
They are spending it on themselves.
Ninety-nine percent of all Christian spending is
on self.
Only one percent for God.
That is David Barrett's recent statistic out of
his study.
Ninety-nine percent of all Christian, all Christian
earnings, spent on oneself.
Only one percent for God.
I'm talking about making disciples, bringing, bringing men
and women to Christ.
You're part of it.
That's the program.
What else?
Baptizing them in Christ.
My heart lifts the other morning when Dr.
Fletcher spoke about some of the evangelism, superficial
evangelism of today, when we go and knock
on doors and make a person nod three
times, say a little prayer after you, and
then write him down as a convert.
No way, no way.
Not in the early church, not in true
evangelism.
You haven't done your job until that person
you have led to Christ has been brought
into the fellowship of the church.
Baptism is the outward expression of inclusion into
the church, in a union of death, burial
and resurrection with Christ.
Oneness, oneness, oneness in the purity of the
church.
Oneness in the ministry of the church.
Oneness in that wonderful sense of liberty in
the church.
It means more than just a ritual of
baptism.
But it means not only bringing men and
women to Christ, not only baptizing men and
women in Christ, but listen, building men and
women in Christ, teaching them to observe all
things whatsoever I have commanded you.
And lo, I am with you always, even
unto the end of the age.
I am thrilled, absolutely thrilled when I meet
lay people.
Lay people who tell me that they've not
only led people to Christ, not only introduced
them to their church, but are actually spending
time discipling in their own homes.
I said it the other day, and many
of you never heard me say it because
you weren't at this service.
A representative from the Philippines, where Lausanne too
has just concluded, has written a report which
I have in my files right there in
the motel room right now, in the Lodge
right now.
Do you know what it says?
That 80% of all people who are
led to Christ are led to Christ by
labor.
All people who are led to Christ all
around the world, especially here in America, and
it's probably higher in America, 80% is
done by labor.
5% only of evangelical pastors have ever
led a soul to Christ one-on-one.
They've given invitations, they've seen people come forward,
but we're talking about one-on-one evangelism,
the way the church grew in the early
church.
There was no Billy Graham.
The big rally on Pentecost was succeeded by
one or two more, and then we don't
read of any big concourses of people, no
big stadium.
How did the church grow so fast so
that in 33 years the whole of the
then known world was evangelized?
How?
One-on-one.
Each one, reach one.
Every member evangelized.
So there's nobody here who can say, ah,
but I am not included in this.
Oh, yes you are.
You may be a sower, you may be
a reaper, but you need sowing to reap.
All of us are witnesses.
A.T. Robertson puts it, A.T. Pearson
puts it, witnessing is the whole work of
the whole church for the whole age.
We're saved to serve.
It's faithful service.
It is servant service.
It is focused service.
Why?
It's serving the Lord, His person, His purpose,
His program.
Priority program.
Far more important than any legislation that's going
to take place this day or until Jesus
comes in Washington, London, Peking, Moscow.
The most important program on God's planet Earth
and in the universe is the completion of
the commission that Jesus gave.
Bringing men and women to Christ.
Yes.
Baptizing men and women to Christ.
Yes.
Building men and women in Christ.
And you are needed.
You are called.
And your prayer should be any way, anywhere,
anytime, Lord.
I surrender to your call.
And I just add, in closing, that that
commission has to do with every culture, every
culture, making disciples of all cultures.
That's what the word is, all nations.
It means every creature, every individual, going into
all the world and preach the gospel to
every creature.
It means every country, every country.
For Acts 1, 8 says, He shall receive
the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon
you and ye shall be witnesses unto me
both in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and what's
the rest of the earth, and unto the
uttermost what?
Many said part.
You were wrong.
Part.
Until the last inch of earth has been
reached.
Every part.
And if your response to Jesus Christ is
real, then you're going to say, Lord, anywhere,
anywhere, any way, anytime, Lord, I surrender to
your call.
Not lagging in diligence.
Faithful.
Servant in spirit.
Servant.
Serving the Lord.
Focused.
Focused on Him personally.
As person.
Focused on His purpose.
To do everything to the glory of God.
Holy and helpful living.
And most of all tonight, focused on His
program.
To bring that tide and build men and
women in Jesus Christ.
Every culture.
Every creature.
Every country.
Three ways in which you can be involved.
Prayer.
To be praying for these beloved missionaries here
and the burden they have about those forty
couples who can't go out.
You can be praying for that training center
there in Washington.
Capitol Seminary.
You can be praying for our own work
here.
Our challenging preachers to get into mission from
the pulpit.
You can be praying for the colony here.
And Keswick.
Which is a platform like no other I
know for the message of full salvation and
mission.
And for doing business with God.
And not just fooling around and giving people
a vacation.
Tonight you're going to respond.
And you're going to say, Lord, You've spoken
to my heart all through this week.
But you know, if the flow of truth,
if the flow of truth is like the
Jordan River that spills into the Dead Sea.
Do you know why it's the Dead Sea?
Because there's no outlet.
No outlet.
Nothing lives in that body of water.
It's dead.
Dead.
Why?
Because there's inflow and no outflow.
The river of truth has been flowing all
through this week.
Now if there's no outflow, do you know
what's going to happen?
All you've heard will go dead.
Dead.
That's the crisis of activity.
Faithful, fervent, focused service.
When you look up into His face and
say, Lord, anywhere, anytime, I
surrender to Your call.
Now.
Let's bow together in prayer.
A few moments of quiet reflection.
...we've used all through this week.
And I want you to step out from
your seat and come forward saying, I know
God has called me to a ministry of
prayer I'd never, never experienced before.
For the ministries not only mentioned this week,
but for missionaries that I know about.
I don't know when I last prayed for
a missionary.
And I'm going to give myself to a
ministry of prayer.
For mission.
I want you to step out and say,
I'm going to look at my budget and
I'm going to see that it's just not
that one percent.
I'm going to give, and I'm going to
give liberally, to the undergirding of mystery work
and some of the causes mentioned here tonight.
But my biggest concern, though that's absolutely basic
to what I've said, are those who are
going to say, Lord, I'm coming forward, and
I really mean anywhere, anywhere.
I may go to Rift Valley Academy right
there in East Africa to be a caretaker,
to be a house mother, to type letters,
to release perhaps evangelists, but I want to
be in service for Jesus Christ.
And whether it's language translation, whether it's nursing,
whether it's medicine, whether it's using the computer
today, or whether it's church planting, I'm going
out there in order that some might be
saved.
And I want Him to have me all.
And there's no age limit on this.
Not just young people today.
Some places that you can speak English, it
doesn't matter what age, as long as you're
fit and well to go.
And sometimes it's those older people who are
freed from all ties, and they can spend
the rest of their time gloriously serving with
faithfulness, yes, and fervency, and focused attention to
His person, to His purpose, and His program.
And if that's the response of your heart
tonight, I want you to leave where you
are, and we're going to have a great
active dedication of the conclusion of this service.
And I want you to come, and take
your stand here.
Let us rise together.
Three, two, eight.
Let's sing it from our hearts, and make
that your hymn of response.
Step right out, right from the very first
verse.