The following message is by Pastor John Piper.
More information from Desiring God Ministries is available
at www.desiringgod.org Acts chapter 13, 1
through 5.
Now there were at Antioch, in the church
that was there, prophets and teachers, Barnabas and
Simeon, who was called Niger, and Lucis of
Cyrene, and Manan, who had been brought up
with Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul.
And while they were ministering to the Lord
and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Set apart
for me Barnabas and Saul for the work
to which I have called them.
Then when they had fasted and prayed and
laid their hands on them, they sent them
away.
So being sent out by the Holy Spirit,
they went down to Seleucia.
And from there they sailed to Cyprus.
And when they reached Salamis, they began to
proclaim the Word of God in the synagogues
of the Jews.
And they also had John as their helper.
I begin by asking your forgiveness for making
this different this morning, because I believe in
the Word of God.
I believe in preaching and exposition and expository
exaltation at the center of worship.
And I'm not going to do a lot
of it this morning, because I sense that
we're at a defining moment in the life
of our church.
And I'm going to spend maybe 10 or
15 minutes on this text, and I'm going
to step back and tell you why I
believe it's a defining moment.
What three providential strands are coming together at
this time, the critical nature of it, and
how you can fast and pray tomorrow towards
God's leading in it.
Father, I ask for your help in the
brief handling of this text, and the more
expansive explanation of this moment in the life
of our church.
I ask that I speak nothing but the
truth, and I speak it in a way
that will be music to the ears of
your people in giving life and hope to
their souls, and that you will be the
center of it, and that it will all
feel blood-bought by a glorious Savior that
we learned about last week, and that you
would move in this congregation to do the
kind of calling that we're about to talk
about, and that more would be done than
we could ever imagine for the cause of
Christ here and around the world, because we've
taken the moment to do what we do
this morning.
Through Christ I pray, amen.
Three observations from this text.
Number one, the Holy Spirit chose a couple
of these teachers and prophets for a new
ministry while they were worshiping and fasting.
Let's read that and make sure you see
it.
Starting at the beginning there of Acts 13,
Now there were at Antioch in the church
that was there prophets and teachers, Barnabas, and
Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene,
and Manaan who was brought up with Herod,
the Tetrarch, and Saul.
While they were ministering to the Lord, that
is while they were worshiping and fasting, the
Holy Spirit said, Set apart for me Barnabas
and Saul for the work to which I
have called them.
So the Holy Spirit does a calling work
and instructs the church to do a setting
apart work.
There's a divine work and a human work
here, and that's the way it ought to
be with church planting and missionary sending and
ordination.
There's a divine work, Holy Spirit acts.
But He doesn't act without involving humans in
the action.
In fact, the perception of the call is
perceived with the mind, it's perceived with the
heart, there's a human involvement there.
And when He instructs them to set apart,
they don't do that without getting God involved.
You see that in verse 3, Then when
they had fasted and prayed, so they're not
going to just say, Okay, the Holy Spirit
said do it, let's do it.
No, it's not that simple.
We will fast and we will pray as
we and before we do this thing.
So they're looking up to God saying, I
believe we discerned you God to do this,
but now we cry out to you, give
us the right attitude, give us the right
demeanor, give us the right spirit, give us
everything we need to do this as we
ought to do it, because we think you
said do it, help us and then they
do it.
So God acts and humans act together in
this.
And that's the way settings apart ought to
happen.
And I don't think it's a coincidence here
that the setting apart happens in worship and
in fasting.
Because the setting apart is to the spread
of worship.
You see the connection?
They're in worship, the call comes because it's
a call to spread worship.
That's what we're about, spreading a passion for
the supremacy of God in all things, for
the joy of all peoples, shorten down the
spread of worship.
So in worship, the spirit moves, calls, they
pray some more, get involved with God some
more and then they spread or they send
and they set apart.
Why?
So that Paul and Barnabas will go plant
churches in Asia Minor, where there will be
worshippers of Jesus Christ, where there weren't any
worshippers before.
My own experience testifies that God uses corporate,
intense, God-centered, spiritually empowered worship to guide
people.
Crucial points in my life.
I look at these students around here.
When I was 18 years old, maybe 17,
I can't remember.
Let's see.
Just compute here a minute.
When I was 18, I turned 18 January,
still wasn't sure where I was going to
college in 1964.
And God landed on me in White Oak
Baptist Church during worship, on the left-hand
side, that would have been this side, about
three-fourths of the way back with the
word Wheaton College.
Not Johns Hopkins, not Emory.
It was as clear as a bell to
me and it came in worship.
It happened also with regard to leaving teaching
at Bethel College.
There have been about two or three major
moments when in addition to all the horizontal
strugglings and prayings and wrestlings, a critical moment
in corporate worship comes with power and you
sense yes to something.
Some call, some decision, break a relationship, get
in a relationship, or something big and it
comes with power.
And I think here we see that happening.
They're in worship and they're in fasting and
the Holy Spirit moves and says, I want
these two, let them go spread worship elsewhere
just like you're doing now.
Second observation from this text.
These two men that the Holy Spirit touched
and called were proven men.
I don't know much about Manan and Lucius
and Simeon.
I assume they were good men.
But I do know something about Saul and
Barnabas.
Saul, the whole book of Acts is built
around his ministry.
We don't have to say anything about Saul
slash Paul.
Maybe we need to say a word about
Barnabas.
He may not be as familiar.
If he were more familiar, more kids would
be named Barnabas in this church.
Chapter 4, verse 36, he is well known
among the apostles and they nickname him, his
name is Joseph.
They nickname him Barnabas, son of encouragement.
You don't get a nickname from the apostles
unless you're pretty proven and pretty well known
in a ministry.
Or we see him in chapter 9, verse
27.
Who but Barnabas, son of encouragement, comes in
alongside Saul when he's newly converted and nobody
believes him and he's an outcast and he
said, I'm real, really, I believe in Jesus.
And they don't want to have anything to
do with him.
It's Barnabas, Mr. Son of Encouragement comes in
alongside.
Alright, I'll get you in there and we'll
work this out.
Or thirdly, chapter 11, verse 22.
Here's the church in Antioch exploding because of
the church being planted owing to the sufferings
of Stephen and they have no leaders.
And so the church in Jerusalem says, who
are we going to send?
Let's send the Son of Encouragement.
He always encourages people.
So there goes Barnabas off to the new
church plant in Antioch.
And fourthly, in chapter 11, verse 30.
When the church in Antioch has to send
money for the poor saints in Jerusalem and
they're wondering, are they going to feel bad
about this because we're treating them like a
welfare case and will they receive this gift
in the right spirit?
Who should we send?
Let's send Mr. Son of Encouragement, Barnabas.
So we know something about Barnabas.
And when the Holy Spirit moves on these
five teachers and prophets He says, I want
Saul and I want Barnabas to leave the
church and do a new thing.
So here Rick and Randy down here getting
ready to be sent away.
That's where this text is coming from.
These were not men that when they were
gone the church said, whew, they're gone because
they didn't do anything to cause trouble anyway.
That's not the way they spoke about Saul
and Barnabas.
They were the kind of men that the
church probably said, say what, Holy Spirit?
You can't take them both.
Maybe we got one of them right, but
you can't take them both.
That's the kind of men they were.
Third observation.
The result of this calling was an unspeakably
powerful and successful spread of the church in
Asia Minor.
You know what happened.
Saul and Barnabas head out.
They go to Cyprus, Salamis planted church, Pergamum,
Antioch, Pisidia, Lystra, Iconium, Derby.
And they come back through strengthening the saints.
And there for the first time the church
is penetrating into the totally unreached Roman pagan
culture because some group fasted and prayed and
heard God say, let the best go.
And we are the beneficiaries 2,000 years
later of that prayer meeting.
End of exposition.
That's the sermon.
Now, we are at a point, I'm calling
a defining moment in Bethlehem for three strands
of providence, call them that, are coming together
and the elders are wrestling with how they
should be woven into a strong ministry rope
for the future and it's not completely clear
to us on some counts.
Let me tell you the three strands and
I'm going to ask you at the end
of this service to fast tomorrow and pray
for a very crucial meeting and some other
things.
Strand number one.
This is the familiar one.
In 1997, the elders knew it was coming,
they could see it.
The children's ministries were burgeoning.
The youth ministry was burgeoning, about 75%
growth in children's ministries over the last three
years since then and 55% roughly in
youth teenage ministries since then.
And we knew we had an old dilapidated
sanctuary.
It served us well, thank you God, for
115 years.
Bless you old building and farewell.
And we'll have some wonderful service before this
is over in which we thank God for
a thousand baptisms and a thousand weddings and
funerals and many of you are going to
shed tears when that building goes grunge under
those awful machines but it's got a goal
because it's not worth repairing and we knew
that and there's a mindset in the church,
that's okay, we can handle that.
Our hearts are not in buildings but it's
got to be replaced by something, you know,
four or five stories tall that'll cost four
or five million dollars and that was the
banner, education for exaltation in 1997.
We saw it coming, we started planning for
it.
That's one strand.
We made a real bad mistake and you
can't do anything about finitude but here's the
mistake we made.
I went back yesterday and got out the
documents.
There's a document called SumDoc, summary document.
Got about five documents in it.
They all summarize what was going on in
those days and I read them and I
read 18 assumptions that we listed.
Wrote them down, 1997 and the most surprising
one to read now is the one about
attendance statistics concerning this service.
Here's what I read.
1998, 1296 in worship.
1999, 1399 in worship.
2000, 1510 in worship.
2004, break the 2000 mark and be ready
to move with phase two.
Well, last Sunday there were 2100 people in
worship.
Four out of the seven Sundays this year
we've been over 2000 and we're four years
early and the elders didn't expect that.
We saw it coming last fall.
That barrier was broken way back earlier last
year.
And so the second strand is not simply
that we have to have for the sake
of the vision we have concerning how to
do children's ministries on Wednesday and Sunday and
in families and during the week.
We need that old dilapidated thing to come
down and be replaced by something bigger and
more effectively useful.
We got a problem in this service because
we're four to five years ahead of schedule
on our timeline.
We just missed it.
We don't know what happened.
Why has there been 78% growth since
1997?
We don't know what's going on.
And so that strand too, and tomorrow night
at 7.15 the elders and those blessed
guys have been meeting until 11 and 12
at night.
Over and over they met on Valentine's Day
night until 11.30. Can you imagine the
marital problems we have created?
This is very dangerous.
So Noelle and I did our Valentine's thing
on Thursday.
Thank you for our Thursday date.
To the Science Museum.
We didn't even go to Pizza Hut.
But I won't get into detail there.
To another place.
That's strand two.
What do we do with this room full
right now?
Do we turn people away at the doors?
We can handle parking by ramps and stuff.
Thank you.
Bless you if you park in the ramp
down beside the Strutware building.
Bless you.
55 of you parked in the ramp and
walked three blocks last Sunday when it was
cold.
Thank you.
Here's strand number three.
This is the one we're about this morning.
And I think they're all going to come
together in some incredibly exciting way.
And the elders need to have wisdom to
see it.
Third strand is this.
We've said as a church for years you
can't just expand and expand and expand on
this corner.
You've got to figure out a way to
spread the vision and spread the people and
plant churches and re-infuse life into churches.
We've got to figure out a way to
do that.
And we've always said that, said that, said
that, said that.
We've done a little bit of it.
Not very programmatically or very effectively in terms
of size.
Now, God has seemed to be doing something
more.
And the elders, I think, are just trying
to play catch-up ball with what God
is doing these days.
Which perhaps is the way it ought to
happen anyway.
Back in 1997, we called one of those
five documents that I read, the Gideon Venture.
And all we meant by the Gideon Venture,
remember Gideon had some Amalekites, no, Midianites to
defeat.
And he had 10,000 men.
And the Holy Spirit said another surprising thing.
Not just send away two, but send away
9,700.
That was the Gideon Venture.
And we said, well, what would correspond to
that?
And we said, no debt.
That would be the Gideon Venture.
Five million dollars between now and September 2001.
We move into it in the fall of
2001.
No debt.
That's impossible.
So the Gideon Venture.
But it did not occur to us as
clearly as it does now that God, maybe,
in that word Gideon Venture, was saying, I
really mean Gideon.
Namely, at the moment when you need the
people to give the most, send them away.
That's what God's doing.
This morning.
So I'm calling you, lots of you, to
leave Bethlehem.
This morning.
That's the point of this service.
To leave and be a part of another
vision.
Let me tell you the vision.
Here's what's happened.
Grace Church Richfield is at 7101 Nicollet Avenue
South, about halfway between the crosstown and 494.
Straight south on Nicollet.
Very easy to get to from here as
you go.
And they've been without a senior preaching pastor
for over two years.
Paul Dreblo, who is a part of our
church, has been the interim there for a
couple of years.
And during that time, the elders, two of
which are here, and I'll introduce them to
you in a moment, crafted a document called,
which you're going to receive in your hands
as you go, the Chief End of Grace
Church Richfield, which was shared with us May
of last year at Chuck Sedum's house on
the third floor of his dwelling.
And I read this with amazement because it
was a magnificent document.
It's about three pages long.
And it is a beautiful, God-centered, Bible
-saturated, visionary, mission-driven statement of what life
in Christ and life in a church can
be and should be.
And when I read it, I thought, this
can be a very wonderful foundation for some
kind of partnership if the two churches ever
want it.
In March, before that meeting, I think it
was, Kenny and Paul Dreblo had been talking
about whether there should be any kind of
alliance or partnership between Bethlehem and grace.
And they presented it to the elders.
The elders brought that document to us.
They said, here's who we are.
Does that look like some way to talk?
And we came away from that saying, does
it ever?
In July of last summer, they took that
document, those elders, to the whole church at
grace and said, are you willing, as a
church, to say, yes, this is who we
are, can we move on this?
And the church united around that in a
formal way.
In August, August 15 of last year, the
church was asked, second step, are you willing
for us to go to Bethlehem and dream
with them about some kind of partnership or
alliance that would be mutually beneficial to both
our churches?
And the church also gave a green light
to that.
Now, the next step happened in a most
remarkable way, which caused me to choose the
text that I chose today, because I believe
Acts 13, 1 to 5 happened to us
in October 19.
We were in a room, as you walk
through from here to the other old building
that's going to come down, and there's an
A104, that's where our staff meets and prays
on Tuesdays.
And we were meeting and praying, and the
elders had sent an email to Sam, or
I don't know who got the email, anyway,
it was brought to us as a staff,
and read to us.
And the email said, here's what our church
has done in July, here's what our church
has done in August, and we are now
formally presenting to you a desire to form
what I believe they called, quote, partnership for
rebirth.
So a desire to see a new vision
happen there at Grace Church, Richfield.
And it involved possibly just a lot of
possibilities, nothing in concrete yet, possibly sending a
preaching pastor, possibly infusing worshippers and workers there,
and so on.
Now, at that moment, we could have, as
a staff, simply said, good idea, let's keep
talking.
But that's not what we did, we said,
this feels so right, and so momentous, let's
just pray.
So we went to prayer, and when we
were done praying, we looked up, and we
looked at each other, and three of us
almost simultaneously said, Rick Gamache.
Now, Rick, who's sitting here, who prayed a
minute ago, has been here for 12 years.
Rick is the manager for theological consultation, or
whatever we call it, in Desiring God Ministries.
He runs the bookstore, if you've ever loved
that bookstore, you owe its stocking to Rick
Gamache's vision for it.
And he's a graduate of Bethel Seminary, and
he's taught the joint heirs class for some
time.
And we looked at each other and said,
Grace Church should be told, and Rick should
be told, they should talk to each other.
Now, we could have left it at that,
but instead, staff meeting was over, it was
time to go to lunch, and I said,
look, before we go, let me just go
get Rick.
This feels so big, let me just go
get Rick, and tell him what's going to
happen with the rest of his life.
And I went to get him, he was
working in the bookstore, I said, I want
you to come to the staff meeting, because
we think we just heard from God about
your future, and we'd like to pray over
you.
And so we sat him down in there,
and said, look, we don't have time to
tell you what's been going on for all
these months, but we think God is calling
you to present yourself, if they'll have you
to be a candidate for the pastorate at
Grace Richfields, so let's pray.
And we prayed over him, and laid our
hands upon him, and sent him on his
way.
Now, to collapse the story into a sentence,
on January 30th, Rick preached his candidating sermon
at Grace Richfields.
On February 6th, two Sundays ago, the church
voted, yes, this is the pastor, if he'll
come.
And last Sunday, the church voted that I
could be free to do what I'm doing
now, namely recruit as many of you as
I can to go with him to Grace.
They're eager and ready for God to move
here on that decision.
Rick has a wife, Delaine, who was sitting
in first service right down there, four children,
Bronte, and Thaxton, and Cosette, and Yaroslav, whom
they just adopted, and who's had a couple
of surgeries since they adopted him.
And there were other names that arose during
that prayer time, and one of them was
Randy Westland, who's sitting here, and his wife,
Kathy, who's not in this service either.
And Randy has felt, along with Rick, the
same kind of call, and so these two
men will go out from us to be
part of the eldership team at Grace Richfields
in the coming month.
So the question is, how many of you
will go with them?
Now, before I issue a very concrete call
to prayer and fasting tomorrow, I want Rick
to come and take a few minutes to
share with you.
So, Rick, why don't you take whatever time
you need to say what's on your heart.
I just want to take a couple of
minutes to give you a peek into the
window of how God led us to Grace
Church Richfield, us being Delaine and I.
This is a peek behind the scenes of
the history that John laid out for you,
as it related directly to me and Delaine.
And I hope that it's going to prove
helpful and hopeful for those called to go
to Grace Church Richfield, whether it's five of
you or 50 of you, and for those
called to stay.
These are a series of journal entries, handwritten
by my wife Delaine, and they represent the
means by which God more than likely won't
lead you to Grace Church Richfield.
Because on June 15, 1998, first entry in
front of me, God very plainly, very plainly,
in the context of word-saturated prayer, and
in response to a sermon preached from this
pulpit by Brent Nelson, declared to Delaine that
we would be leaving Bethlehem for the pastoral
ministry shortly.
And that was nine months before the elders
of grace ever came to the elders of
Bethlehem and said, could we work on a
partnership?
Now, I think God does that very rarely.
And one of the reasons I think that
he does that very rarely is because when
he does that, it's so subjective.
And that kind of subjective perception leaves us
with almost no sense of confidence that what
we've heard was really from God.
So what I have here in my hand
is a year's worth of my wife's prayerfully
expressing her doubts, her frustrations, her agonizing over
the spontaneous word that the Lord just dropped
in her mind that I didn't share.
Now, I knew that God had stirred in
Delaine some kind of sense for a new
venture in ministry, but I didn't know that
these journals existed until I was well into
the search committee process at Grace Church Richfield.
Delaine very wisely, I think, simply put her
hand to her mouth, wrote in her journal,
and prayed very, very hard.
But I knew enough of this stirring in
my wife so that when Pastor John came
and took me out of the bookstore and
explained to me this vision for Grace Church
Richfield, I stood dumbstruck just thinking over and
over again, my wife is a prophet, my
wife is a prophet, my wife is a
prophet.
But still, there was no direct declaration from
God to me.
So I went to the only place I
know to go when I'm looking for God's
leading.
I went to the Word.
And I judged my motives and my qualifications
for the task that I was apparently being
called to by it.
And I prayed the Word, specifically Romans 12,
2, that I would not be conformed to
this world, but that I'd be transformed by
the renewing of my mind so that I
may prove what the will of God is,
that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
So God's will concerning me and Grace Church
Richfield needed to be proved.
And that to me meant it needed to
be examined, it needed to be verified, and
then finally in the end it needed to
be accepted by my mind.
By my mind, a renewed mind, not ordinary
thought processes, but the thought processes of a
mind that's been renewed and transformed.
And transformed by the Word.
So in utter dependence on the Holy Spirit,
I learned everything I could about Grace Church
Richfield to see if it was the right
fit.
I sought wisdom like James encourages us to
in faith without doubting.
I didn't just want to put my hope
in external compliance with instructions God may or
may not have given to my wife.
In the end, I still had two really
good choices before me.
Ministry with Desiring God Ministries or ministry with
Grace Church Richfield.
And as I prayed, and as I delved
into the Word, something very wonderful and something
very startling happened.
I examined the Word, myself, Grace Church Richfield,
mainly through that wonderful Chief End document that
I hope you all read.
I verified what I sensed was happening by
prayer, reflection, counsel, pulpit search committee process, and
finally I embraced that which I desired more.
Startingly enough, shockingly enough, the pulpit at Grace
Church Richfield.
And the reason it's so startling to me
is because I love my ministry at Desiring
God Ministries.
And I love my co-laborers.
And I love my co-laborers on staff
at Bethlehem Baptist Church.
And as I look out at you all,
my heart overflows in affection.
And it was also startling because this desire,
even though it was all-absorbing and encompassing,
which is the way that Charles Spurgeon defined
a call, an all-encompassing, all-absorbing intense
desire for the work, even though that was
there, I still felt pangs.
Delane wrote on that day in June 1998,
this is exciting and painful if we are
to leave our beloved Bethlehem.
To leave would feel like birth pains.
And it does.
And I don't doubt that for you, five
or fifty who are to come to Grace
Church Richfield, that the decision to leave Bethlehem
will be painful.
It will be painful.
But I know that if you go prayerfully
to the Word, if you come to the
informational meeting on Wednesday night at 7 o
'clock and then the infusion meetings on Sunday
nights at Grace Church Richfield, in utter dependence
on the Holy Spirit, seeking to be transformed
by a renewing of your mind to prove
what the will of God is, then your
desire to stay or your desire to go
will be God-shaped.
And that God-shaped desire will be your
guide.
So, here's my prayer for you all.
And it's been for some time.
And I know I speak for Randy Westland
and for Mark Alderton and John Huspenny, the
elders at Grace.
Paul wrote it to the Colossians and we
say it now to you.
Since the day we heard of the infusion
of worshipers from Bethlehem to Grace Church Richfield,
we have not ceased to pray for you
and to ask that you may be filled
with the knowledge of His will and all
spiritual wisdom and understanding so that you will
walk in a manner worthy of the Lord
to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit
in every good work and increasing in the
knowledge of God, strengthened with all power, according
to His glorious might, for the attaining of
all steadfastness and patience, joyously giving thanks to
the Father who has qualified us to share
in the inheritance of the saints in light.
Now, as we move towards a closing challenge,
let me just remind you, make sure you
have your ring book and that you get
your packet and especially that you get Rick's
letter.
This letter is really crucial and you'll see
a staple to it, the chief end of
Grace Church Richfield here.
So after lunch today, sit down on your
favorite chair and read this and then put
it in the sermon section of the book.
Let me close by calling you to pray
and fast tomorrow.
Here's what I would like you to do.
Defining moment.
Here's the way I would put the defining
moment most concretely as it relates to the
third strand.
First strand, educational expansion, new building, lots of
money.
Second strand, how do you handle the growth
in this room, in these services.
Third strand, the releasing, sending, church planting strand
and this is not the end of the
story.
I know of two other visions in the
making right now in this church that are
going to result in the same kind of
thing probably.
So the third strand goes like this.
Can we as a church over the next
10 years, say the 10 to 15 latter
years of the Piper time, as I transition
toward retirement in 11 to 12 years or
whatever you let me stay till, I'm 54.
Can we increasingly become a centrifugal as well
as a centripetal force in the cities?
It's relatively easy to be a centripetal force,
produce some good worship and good music and
clear preaching and people tend to come.
But it's not easy to be a centrifugal
force because as we've heard, leaving is hard
if you like people, if you like the
way things are done, if you like whatever
you like about it.
And so the question is over those years,
can we spin off people to other churches
or plant other churches?
That's the big question and that's the third
strand and there's got to be a connection
between strand three and strand two, it seems
to me.
Otherwise, you're stuck with ever greater expansion on
one site which seems like it's just got
to stop somewhere and yet God doesn't ever
intend us to stop growing.
The Lord added unto the church daily as
many as were being saved.
It would be a sin not to see
that happen regularly.
But it doesn't have to be here.
It doesn't have to be in this location.
So that's the key question.
Now here's what I want to do.
I'm going to invite Rick and Randy to
stand here and Mark and John to come
stand here.
Any of our elders, other elders, would you
just come?
I didn't tell you I was going to
do this but any other Bethlehem elders, come
and line up behind them here.
A good many were in the first service.
I don't know how many are in this
service but if any of you is in
this service and not working elsewhere, come in
with us.
This is Mark Alderson and John Huspenny.
They're the elders who have been so significant
in crafting the document, working it through with
their people and in mightily trusting God in
these years of transition at grace.
Now, I'm going to pray for them while
we put our hands on them right now.
And when I'm done praying, while your heads
are still bowed, I'm going to ask you
to raise your hand if you'll commit to
two things.
Usually it's just one thing.
Will you pass on one meal tomorrow and
during the time you might have spent eating,
breakfast, lunch or supper, pray for 15 minutes
of that for two things.
The elders meeting tomorrow night.
It feels very big and we have not
been able to get the kind of breakthrough
we want in how these three strands come
together.
We have been taken off guard by what's
happened in recent days and we're just not
sure how all the pieces fit and God
is not the least confused about this and
we need to just get in tune with
Him.
So pray that.
Number two, would you pray, Lord, am I
one of the goers?
Make it plain.
And Lord, send the group that should go.
It's those prayers.
Prayers for the elders, prayer for the sending
and I'll ask you in a minute to
just commit to that.
We're not asking for any commitment to go
this morning, that's premature.
Wednesday night, 7 o'clock, while I'm teaching
in here, Rick and these guys will be
in there and you can ask them every
question that's in your head right now in
the fellowship hall and then there'll be follow
-up meetings down at Grace and you'll be
able to think it through, pray it through,
discuss it through.
You may be teaching a Sunday school class
right now, you may be leading a small
group, you may be on the elder council,
you may be on the staff and God
says you go and we'll accept God's leading.
So let's pray.
Get in place, you guys.
Let's get on them, elders.
Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you for these
brothers.
The rocks that have endured, the winds at
Grace there and now stand ready for a
new day.
We pray that you would honor their faith
and their labors with joy and with a
passion for God in all things, for the
joy of all Richfield and all the southern
suburbs and all the nations.
Would you be on Rick and Randy as
they go out from us and on their
wives, Delaine and Kathy, and on their children,
oh God.
And would you be at work in this
room right now to quicken desire to be
a part of something new, some venture, something
unpredictable.
God, it's not a life of ease that
you call us to.
Grant that our people would say, yes, where
you are calling and we leave the number
to you because you know exactly how many
would be good for them and how many
would be good for us to say farewell
to.
We don't know that number, you know the
number.
You do the number, oh God, according to
your great wisdom and love for both churches,
I pray.
And now while your heads are still bowed,
I just think it would be helpful for
you to make a commitment.
Lift your hand if you'll fast like I
ask you to tomorrow, one meal.
Thank you so much.
That's a lot of prayer that's going to
go up tomorrow.
You can put them down and we elders
will be counting on that tomorrow night.
And now, Lord, we commit our lives to
you as you dismiss us in your grace.
Through Christ I pray, amen.
Thank you for listening to this message by
John Piper, pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist
Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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