In this sermon, the speaker discusses the importance of missions and spreading the gospel to those who have not heard it. He shares personal stories of missionaries in Siberia and Peru who are dedicated to bringing Christ to people in desperate need. The speaker emphasizes the need for believers to have a vision for the world and to use their resources and abilities to serve God and win souls. He also highlights the faith and dedication of unknown missionaries who have planted numerous churches despite their limited resources. The sermon encourages listeners to embrace the Great Commission and be willing to go or support those who are going to share the gospel.

Well, usually when someone pulls a board out like this, they're going to teach on the second coming with a whole bunch of drawings, but I'm not going to do that tonight because, well, Pastor Noblitt asked me a few weeks ago if I would share more about what HeartCry is doing, and and I said I would. And then I asked him, I said, well, just do you want us to do our our presentation, our PowerPoint presentation? What would you like for us to do? And he goes, do you remember a long time ago when you went wild on that whiteboard showing me all that could be done in the name of missions and in this church and things? And I said, yes, he goes, I want you to do that. And I said, OK, then that's that's what we'll do. As you know, we came here several months ago now and it was in no way to replace the mission work, the fine mission work that's already being done through this church in many different parts of the world. But you allowed us to come here and you provided a place for us to be fellowship, being under the authority of pastors and and deacons and a congregation that is striving to to know God and to love him. And it has meant so much to us to be here. It has been a tremendous blessing and it's been a tremendous blessing also to work under the authorities that are here and the help that they have given us in instruction and accountability. Also, I would just like to say as a word of encouragement that and I was saying this this morning in the prayer time. In the last few days, my little boy, Ian, has started saying things about Jesus and about about God, and and I thought to myself, well, he didn't learn that from me. And even though his mother teaches him and things, there were some things that I knew that she hadn't taught him and I began to talk to him. And I was just so full of joy that my son has learned so much in Sunday school here. I mean, really learn things, not just coloring Joseph's coat, but actually learning truth. And then also in his play school with Miss Martha and how much he has learned. And that's one of the reasons why we came here is we wanted to be in a place where we could sit under biblical preaching, even like we had this morning, and that we could go out from here and preach the gospel in the world and that sometimes we could even leave our families behind and know that when they came into this building in Sunday school and they came in this building, that they would hear the word of God preached. And you don't know. Well, you probably do. But just how much weight that takes off a person's shoulders when they know that they can go out because their family's getting the word of God here now to talk about missions. There is so much to say, but let's pray, let's pray. Father. I come before you and I ask, Lord, that another impossible task is set before me, and that is to share all that you have done in your goodness and your mercy, not because of the faith of men, but in spite of their lack of faith, because of your goodness and your strength and your desire to make your name great among the nations. I pray, Lord, that you would supercharge us with a great commission. And that, Lord, as this church continues to grow, continues to be strengthened by your grace and by your word, I pray, Father, that we would have such a vision for the world that we would realize, Lord, that we only have a few years pilgrimage on this earth and that we should do all that is within our power and in our means, Lord, to serve you, to win the lost here and around the world. And Lord, help us to see that there is no obstacle and that you can use us, Lord, you can use us to win nations. Please help us, dear God, give us wisdom, illuminate our hearts and minds in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, we began with a little bit about about heart cry the last time I was I was here. And and I want to kind of take us back to the beginning and then show you the things that are out there right now and that the Lord is doing and allowing us to do because of what you have done for us and with us and that as time goes on, that more and more we will come together and that God will use us to focus our energies on a lost world. The world is lost. And yes, men will go to hell, but if they go to hell, they ought to do it. Jumping over every one of our prayers and every one of our cries and every one of our proclamations that they turn to Christ and be saved, we are living at this moment in the greatest period of Christian history since the day of Pentecost. And I personally believe even greater than the day of Pentecost. There is so many doors open to us. There are places open to us in the world that the apostles didn't even know existed. There are doors open to us to preach the gospel that no one even 10 years ago would have ever believed would be open. And then there is means at our disposal, everything from airplanes to Internet to on and on so many places in so many means that God has laid open before us that we might take the gospel to the world. I have always said that the Great Commission is basically divided up into two ministries. And every Christian is called to participate in the Great Commission. You only have to decide in God's wisdom what part of that commission you belong to. You are either called to go down into the well, called to be a missionary and go down into the well, or you are called to hold the ropes for those who go down. Either way, there's going to be scars on your hands because it takes just as much energy to energy to hold the rope. It costs just as much to hold the rope as it does to go down it. My question to you, what side of the rope are you on? Has God called you to go down into the well, then go, even if it's the deepest, darkest place on this earth, go. Or has God called you to hold the rope for those who are going down? Back in 1988, I went to Peru as a missionary. I soon discovered many of my weaknesses and inabilities, but the Lord was merciful. One of the greatest things that the Lord's ever done in my life was to introduce me to unknown men and women, men who have planted five, 10, 15, 20, even more churches and yet live on $150 a month, sleep in places where you would not keep your cattle. And they do it all for the sake of the gospel. And I soon found out that they could plant churches much better than I could ever plant a church and they could go places I could not go and they could suffer things that I could not suffer. And I decided something, something that is very useful for all Christians to do. I never wanted, I never want to do something that another Christian is more capable of doing. I want to look at what God's put in my hand, a Moses staff, for example. I want to look at the gifts that God has given me and then ask myself, how can I best use those gifts to further his kingdom? And I discovered after many years in Peru that one of the greatest things that I could do would be to make known to my own people that there was a there is a group. Of indigenous missionaries out there. Who are poor, uneducated, some of them, I am the mountain men I'm thinking about right now, maybe have not even bathed in two months. And yet the power of God is upon their life and they plant churches and they preach the gospel. And when persecution comes, they stand there and continue preaching until a church is planted. And God showed me that the best use of my life would be to help those men do things. That I and all my power could never do. And so when we we started in Peru, first of all, we started working with a missionary by the name of Homer Crane. Wonderful, wonderful man. We used to call him the John Wayne of South American missions. He was the toughest, meanest old goat you've ever seen in your life. But he loved Peruvians. We planted a church out in Bentania Alta. That church is now a strong, sovereign grace church. Of about seventy five members. But while I was doing that, Homer was planting the church and I was learning from Homer. While I was doing that, we started a Bible study among university students in Lima. In a place called Circle, and there God began to bless after a few months, the group began to grow and grow and grow. And after a year and a half, we planted a church. We moved the church from there to Mia Flores and it was growing, not without trial, but growing. And today that church is in a place called Barranco. And it's pastored by a man by the name of Martin Zacarias. As a matter of fact, that is where Chad goes every time that he is in Lima now. He stays at that church. But while we were doing that, while I was planting this church with the traditional missionary methods of an American going somewhere and planting a church, I began to see Peruvian brothers in the places called Pueblo Jovenes, which are called basically, literally young towns, they're slums. Where impoverished people will move into the desert, there's no sewer lines, there's no electricity, there's there's nothing, but they begin to live there and work there and it grows up into a regular town. I began to notice these Peruvians all over preaching the gospel in these slum areas. And instead of trying to go out myself and plant a church, I began to think to myself, what if I just help them? I've had more theological training than they have, so I can help them when the cults and the marginal Christian groups attack their congregations. I know things about doctrine and teaching and Greek and Hebrew, and I can go and assist them whenever they need assistance. But also I began to see something else that some of them lived in places and suffered things that were almost unbearable for the sake of the gospel. And I began to think of myself, you know, we could I could start a mission organization and we could send missionaries from the United States and it would cost about four thousand dollars a month to send one of them here. And then they would have to be here for a full length of time to learn the language and the culture and everything else, and four years have gone by and we've spent a quarter of a million dollars and we haven't planted a church or we could begin supporting these indigenous missionaries. Some of them living on one hundred dollars a month. Giving them enough for their families to at least live with dignity and for them to go out and preach the gospel. Now, when we came up with this idea, as others have in South America and different places, automatically many people opposed it. Heard things like if you do this, well, the nationals will just become spoiled. I thought, right, they're going to get spoiled on one hundred and fifty dollars a month. They won't work. They'll become dependent. We've tried it and it doesn't work. You can't do this with this type of people because it'll just ruin the mission work. But I begin to look at all the objections and I begin to put them in light of scripture and I begin to see something. Americans supporting indigenous missionaries in the past has usually failed. But why has it failed? Not because they were indigenous peoples, not because it was American money. It failed because many biblical principles were being broken. Let me give you an example. A North American pastor goes over to Romania or Poland or somewhere like that, and he stays there for a week and he meets a Polish missionary who's living almost on nothing in order to preach the gospel. His heart goes out to him, so he comes back to the United States after knowing the man for just a week and raises money and begins to support the man. Do you see that all the biblical principles have been broken? You can't know a man in a week. You don't know in a week if that missionary qualifies, according to First Timothy, chapter three, as a minister of the gospel. Being so many thousands of miles away, you can't hold the man accountable. You don't really know him. You don't really know what he's doing. And that's one of the reasons why the support of indigenous missionaries has always led to ruin, not because you can't support indigenous missionaries, but because biblical principles were broken. And so we began to just help indigenous missionaries, but keep all the biblical principles. And we started a church, if you were to look at I'm a terrible artist, so forgive me if you were to look at Peru that shaped something like this. A peanut. We started a church in Lima in Barranco, and within several years it was turned over to indigenous men and it now continues. But from there we went out into the slums and we started several satellite churches all around. And now they are growing and going. As a matter of fact, this next week, Chad, along with a team of men from the United States, will be training. About 12 missionaries that work directly with us just in Lima now, I got a call last night with a man saying one of our directors saying, look, we've got to open this up. All the pastors and missionaries around Lima are really mad because you won't open this conference up to everyone. I said, brother, maybe in a few years we'll be able to do that, but right now we have to work with a small group of men. What does that tell us? That right now. We could have a conference in Lima, Peru, and have hundreds of missionaries and pastors all sitting under teaching that is very uncommon today on the mission field, the same teaching you're getting here, which is very uncommon in America. But we have churches in so many different parts in this area. And so many men that are willing to be taught by us, it's just it's absolutely astounding from from Barranco, the first place we started was Tabernaculo, which was a church that we started with about eleven hundred dollars. We put the first foundation in and went up from there. And now it's a thriving church, church and via primavera, church in Santa Clara on and on and on and on. All throughout Lima, but then after a few years in Lima, one of the most wonderful things happened, there was a big Baptist conference, nationwide Baptist conference. So many men from the provinces out in the jungles in the mountains came to Lima. I had always heard of a man by the name of Angel Comenares, they called him the Archbishop of the North, the Archbishop of the North. He was a Baptist, but he planted so many churches and I just wanted to meet him. And I prayed about meeting him. And one day a man asked me, he said, look, all the pastors are coming in. Can some of the pastors stay at your house in your church where you're staying? I said, sure, just bring them all in. I'll throw mats on the ground. We'll all sleep there. No problem. So I walked in one day and there's Angel Comenares, a little man about this tall, balding, glasses, kind of chubby. And I said, Angel, he said, yes, for the Paul. I said, I need to talk to you, you have been such a burden on my heart. He had planted with the men working with him, 75 churches. We began to work together. Providing things for some of the men who were walking days and days in the mountains to preach the gospel, just buying a mule, other places, building churches or putting roofs on places, providing Bibles. We began to pray and pray. And in time, we became the largest purchaser of Bibles in the country of Peru and then supporting men and helping them and sending training materials. And now the movement has grown to 600 churches. Now, that's not because of heart cry. It's because of God's spirit and an indigenous work. But we were there to be able to help and to strengthen. And that movement continues on. So Angel Comenares is in this area in Suyana and we work directly with Angel and his son Daniel Comenares. Also, we helped to build a seminary here that's now training about 30 young men full time. Has its own buildings. And then from out here, the movement, it started first in a place called the province of Piura. But now there are so many people that have become Christians in this area that it's spilling over because God caused a drought here, which caused all the farming communities that are Christians move into the jungle areas. So now the gospel is being taken as far as the Agua Nuna tribe and the Wambisa tribe. These are men that we all work with and it adds up to more than 600 churches, 600 churches. And then after a few years after meeting Angel Comenares, I was praying and one day I had a little TV that we would watch because the the American embassy recommended that all the Americans have TVs because because of the war, sometimes there would be a red alert and it would we'd be very close to all of us being pulled out of the country because bombs would be blowing up in Lima and people be getting killed and threats on our lives. And so I was watching television one day and they had a special program on the Agua Nuna tribe. And I began to see the starvation. And just the destitute, it was a people so destitute, children starving, no penicillin, it was just horrid, no education and more importantly, no gospel. And so I began to pray, oh, God, I just want to go there. I didn't even know where it was. It was somewhere way up on the border here near Ecuador. And I was praying and praying, and every time I would talk to somebody in the in the Christian community in Lima, I just mentioned my burden for the Agua Nuna. And one day someone knocked on the door and it was a very important leader among the Agua Nuna tribe. He said, I came to Lima and some Baptist congressman told me that you needed to talk to me. And so immediately we made a trip up to the Agua Nuna tribe and worked with them for several years, kind of on a just a visit type basis with a dear friend of mine by the name of Paco Laos. But in time, one of the men I discipled in one of these churches by the name of Mario Salinas, who started the church in Santa Clara, he came to me and he said, I can't stay here anymore. I said, what's wrong? He said, I've got to go to the jungle. I've got to go to the Agua Nuna tribe. I said, you're kidding. I said, no one lives among the Agua Nuna except the Agua Nuna. I know you're Peruvian, but you're from Lima. Do you know what it's like to live there? He says, I don't care. I've got to go. And so we helped Mario Salinas go all the way up here, and now he's working with the Agua Nuna tribe and the Wambisa tribe. And in a couple of weeks, Chad Haygood is going there. I don't know if he'll ever come back, but he is going there. And these are thousands and thousands, ten thousands of people. That need the gospel. And we have an open door to them. Shall we not go, we have an open door to these peoples, and then another young man that Carlton Allen, a dear friend of mine, was discipling and then I discipled for a while by the name of Arturo Marin, discipling one day. He doesn't show up to discipleship. What's going on? He's been thrown in the worst prison in Peru, maybe the worst prison in South America accused as a terrorist. And so I hire a lawyer, I'm doing everything in my power to get him out of jail, but he stays there for two years. But while he's there, he leads so many of the Sendero Luminoso, the terrorist leaders to Christ and plants a church. And when all hope failed with every lawyer getting him out one day, he said the military walked into his cell and said, get out. And he said, I can't leave, I got to church, get out or die. And he gets out. And he comes to me, I couldn't believe it, he shows up in a service one day. And he says, God wants me to go back to my people, where? In the Pueblo San Rafael, in the province of San Martin, in the jungle here. And so now he's there, he has a church, he has a Christian school and he has 11 satellite works all around here. So we add up here, we have several works here. There's over 600 works here. There are over 10 works along with a Christian school, a seminary here. And right now, the only thing that stops us from being more involved is just not enough time in the day that just it'd be great if God would just give us like a hundred hours a day or he'd give us like 30 lives just to throw them away, see how fast we could lose them. But then one day I was praying and I realized something, I said, God, you know, I could sit on my laurels the rest of my life. I could just be down here in Peru and everything is going fine and the work is really growing. But Lord, that's not what you called us to do. What else? Just just so I was praying and praying and I felt like the Lord said, I want you to support five indigenous missionaries in Romania. And I said, Romania, why not Colombia? Why not Ecuador? Why not somewhere? And so I said, Lord, I'll come back tomorrow and we'll talk again because I'm not sure I'm really hearing very clear. And the next day, just praying and seeking the Lord, and it was like, no, 10. And I'm like, well, can we start with five? And so I bought a ticket to the United States and that is a wild story in itself. I bought a ticket to the United States the night before we left. I was praying and all the brothers were praying with me that God would give me traveling graces. I get there and I'm going through customs and all of a sudden the man looks at me, calls the military, they grab me and put me in a holding cell because my visa is expired. And then they let me go and I go to the American Council at the Evangelical Council. And I said, look, my visa is expired and they've told me I'm not going to get out of here for months. And they said, you're not going to get out of here for months. I said, but God said to go back to the United States. I'm sure I heard him in order to talk to somebody about Romania. And so we jumped in the car that very day and we went to the council. Then we went on to immigrations. There was this huge line, there was an hour left in the time, a huge line. There was no way I was going to get to anybody. So I said, well, where's the director of the entire country? And they said, well, he's upstairs, but you can't see him. I said, well, I can't see the man who's on the other end of this line either. So we went upstairs and I walked in and there was a nun right in front of me. And she she said she told this this this bureaucrat, she said, look, I went to the airport today and I found out my visa is expired and I need to get out of the country. Can you please just stamp it? He said, I'm sorry, ma'am, you're here for months. You'll never get out of here. And I thought, well, this is not looking very good for me. After all, she's a nun. They love nuns. I'm an evangelical missionary and they hate me. So when she got done, I said I went to the airport today and my visa is expired and I've got to leave the country immediately. I have a very important meeting. And the guy goes, wait a minute. He went in the director's office and the director came out and he explained it to the director and director said. What are you calling me for? Stamp his visa, get him out of here. And so I got on the plane the next day and ended up getting to Romania and we began to support missionaries. As the work in Romania was going on, we began to support missionaries, Romanian and also Rome missionaries, Rome missionaries or gypsy missionaries. And God began to prosper. But we didn't have a director. And pretty soon we realized that there wasn't the accountability that we needed. And so I was praying one day and talking to the president of the Romanian Baptist Union and he said, I have a young man. That I think that you guys ought to call as your director, and it was so important, the man who's visited here a few times now and God began to work through that young man and we started supporting missionaries in Romania. And then from Romania went to Moldova and then from Moldova started supporting missionaries in Ukraine and then Ukraine started supporting we started supporting missionaries in Serbia, which is very important to me because my family is Croatian. My mother's name is Matija Beach and hopefully next year maybe Croatia. But God began to open up all of Eastern Europe and we have churches all the way from Ukraine down to Serbia. But then God opened up a door also, I was praying and I got a phone call at 1230 one night and it was a man from from Israel by the name of Anthony Simon, because we had a missionary, one of our best missionaries in Moldova who is Jewish. And about a year before this phone call from Israel, he came and he said to me, don't support me anymore because I'm going back to Israel. And I said, great, I'll support you in Israel. He said, no, you cannot support me until God gives me a specific calling. And so he turned down all his support and he went to Israel, and then a year later, he befriends Anthony Simon and Anthony Simon calls me up at midnight and says, are you Paul Washer? And I said, yes, who are you? I'm Anthony Simon from Israel. And Slavik Spotaru, a man says he knows you and he's working with me and he really needs support. And I said, but sir, I I don't know what your doctrine is. There's a lot of crazy groups in Israel. I said, what's your doctrine? He said, have you ever heard of Charles Spurgeon in the 1689 confession? I said, yeah. He goes, well, that's our doctrine. I said, OK. And so we started working in Israel and God began to bless. And then from there, James Dali, I had heard about this man from the 1040 window and that he God was using him in a mighty way. He was trained in the reformed seminary here. And then he went back. He is a Baptist. He's Calvinistic. He loves souls. And he went back and began training men and starting churches. And I'd always heard about him, but I never met him. And so it's praying and praying and praying. And then one day through a phone call of a friend came in contact with him. And we started supporting an organization that he had started within the country of India called the Grace Himalayan Mission. We began to support and God began to use that support to train missionaries and send more missionaries, and now the work in the 1040 window we think is going to be the biggest work, and it is definitely the most needy area on the face of the earth. What we didn't realize until about two years later, later that when we called him to support the Grace Himalayan Mission, it was just a dream. It didn't even exist. And then we began supporting it. And now the Grace Himalayan Mission is working in India. It is working in the Indochinese border. It is working in China. It is working in Nepal. It is working in Tibet. Of course, some of those are kind of moving around because our guys will run across the border and they'll preach until they're driven out. And run back into India, and then when it calms down, they go back in again at the at the camp there where they're training missionaries in Infall City. There is a lady now with her three children and she is working there and she also does a lot of women evangelism. Because last year, going out as a missionary family with her husband while working on the field, her husband was poisoned to death by the Hindus for preaching the gospel. He ran down the streets, made it home and fell on the porch where he died in front of his wife and children. But she's still preaching the gospel, and then from there, there's also my goodness, where should we go now? The Africa. Came in contact with a man that I'd heard about many, many years and named Conrad and Bayway from Zambia. The Banner of Truth call him the African Spurgeon or the Spurgeon of Africa is one of the most phenomenal mission movements I've ever seen on the planet because they have such a zeal for planting churches and winning souls. But they also have probably the most sound theology I've seen anywhere on the planet. It is absolutely amazing, I was there last year to see 700 Africans from Kenya everywhere, all gathered together, and the title of the conference was The Sovereign Grace of God in Salvation. And through some answer to prayer this year, heading up the conference is going to be Vodie Bacchum and Jeff Knoblet. And it's just absolutely it's phenomenal because the Africans there are saying, look, the Europeans are never going to go south and reach the Muslims. They don't have what it takes to do it. And they're right. If the Muslim world is going to be reached, it's going to be reached by Africans going north. And I said, but Conrad, if you go north, people are going to die. Missionaries are going to die. And he said, that's what missionaries do. As Amy Carmichael said many years ago, missions is nothing but an opportunity to die, an opportunity to die. The work there in Zambia, they're hitting all the major metropolitan areas in the country of Zambia, and they're planting churches. But then from there, they're wanting to pick up some of these tribes that are without the gospel. This last few months ago, I was in Zambia and I was visiting the Losi tribe. You've probably heard of David Livingston. There's a there's a city there named Livingston in south Zambia. From there, four or five hours out into the bush is the Losi tribe. They are without the gospel. There are people who travel there every once in a while and just show them the Jesus film, but no preaching, no discipleship. There are many who go there and do prayer walks, but there's no preaching and no discipleship. One of the greatest needs is for that Losi tribe to be reached, and it's almost it is an impossible task. The young man that I was working with that shows the most promise. Shared with me how his he watched his 17 year old brother snatched off the riverbank by crocodile, they have nothing. And they need Christ. They have nothing. And they need Christ. Also, one other place. We just had a return visit from our our Ukrainian director. We've been supporting a missionary now for about three years, over three years in the Jamal Peninsula in Siberia. Where again, men need Christ. This is a place where men need Christ. This is what we're doing. This is what you are doing. This is what you are enabling us to do. And hopefully it'll come to a point where it's not you and us, but we the gospel, the gospel to the world, the gospel where it's not preached. A reason to be alive. Sometimes I feel being here at this church that we're like surrounded on all sides, we have a trowel in one hand in which we're trying to build in a sword and the other in which we're defending and fighting. And it's that way on all fronts. There's this great burden in this church and with the leadership for for truth, well, the greatest need on the mission field is not more missionaries, the greatest need on the mission field is more truth. Through more missionaries, because it doesn't matter if you send missionaries everywhere, if they're not preaching the truth, it doesn't matter. There is so much to do. There is the the preaching from this pulpit that ought to be everywhere. It ought to be everywhere. It ought to be everywhere. It ought to be going out everywhere and we ought to be thinking about ways to get it out. As much as possible. What a privilege it is just to hear truth. And to get it out to the whole world, we ought to be just sitting down all the time, not only the staff, not only the leadership, but everybody in this church with just the wheels turning. How can we do more? How can we get it out better? We shouldn't just do our job. We should live a passion. So get the truth out here, then there's the idea of worship here. Not that anyone has arrived or anything like that, but the worship that is here, many people would be blessed if they were taught to do worship biblically. That's another thing that can be done here, not just impact this church with worship, but impact the entire world with worship, sound worship, biblical worship. And then there's the idea of these pastors conferences and all these things. My goodness, one day to have what hundreds, thousands of pastors and young preachers and budding missionaries hearing the truth so that they take out to the countries in the states in which they're going to go. They take out more than just a little strategy or five things God wants you to know, but they learn to preach the truth. And then there is missions, missions, God can use us to affect the world. Why not? The only thing I ever qualified for was being used of God because he only chooses the brunt of the litter. God can use us and our lives can mean something. Doesn't matter what your gifts are. If you're a Christian, you're gifted and you've got to use them. You've got to use them. I know you are. Many of you are using them. You're working so much you can't work anymore. Praise God for you. But the rest of us, like myself, I think I still got at least 20 or 30 percent hidden in there that's not being used. To serve the Lord. For such a time as this, we were born and for such a time as this, we were brought together. And to whom much is given, much is required. Much is required. Pray, pray. And be willing, be willing. I have never been more excited in all my life about what God has done, is doing and will do the church. It's about you. It's about you, every one of you who is a Christian, you have been given the Holy Spirit. You have been given gifts. And you're using them, but constantly be looking for the Lord, constantly be crying out to him, Lord. Would you have more of me? Lord. Is there another thing you would have me do, Lord, how can I use my gifts that you have given me? We are living. In the greatest moment of Christian history. The greatest moment of Christian history. And I'm so excited about being a part. Of a group of people. Who want to be used of the Lord. Lord. I'm so excited. About having a pastor that has crazier dreams than I do. I'm so excited about what God is doing in every one of your lives, and he's going to bring this together and it's going to rise up like a symphony. If we will humble ourselves before him. He will use us. Be used of the Lord, realize that this is the time. You're either called to be a missionary or you're called. To hold the rope for missionaries who go down, doesn't matter what your gifts are. They are absolutely necessary. Very. Sometimes, and I'll close with this, when I'm in a church and they ask me to teach on gifts. In order to show the absolute importance of every gift in the church and of every believer in the church, I won't do it here, but sometimes I'll ask a young man who's kind of athletic to come to the front and I'll say, now, young man, I know this is a Baptist church, but I want you to run to those back doors as fast as you can and run back. He takes off running to the astonishment of the deacons and pastor. He takes off running and turns around, runs right back and stops proud of himself. And I said, now I want you to grab one of your legs and pull it behind you. And I want you to run. He'll take off running, not quite as fast, not quite as fluid. He'll come back, usually takes him at least five or six times the time to do that. Because one leg's been pulled back and then I tell him to stand there with one leg pulled back and I tell him to grab the other leg and pull it back. And usually because young guys aren't too smart, he'll try to figure out how he's going to do that without falling down and then it'll finally dawn on him. I can't. I took two members. Of his body away. Two members, only two members, and I mean, there's thousands of members and functioning working parts in the body. I took two members away. I disabled them and the body could not function at all like it could before. Do you see how important your gift is? Please. Take away one of us, one of us, just say, well, you know, it's not that important. I'm I mean, I'm not that big a deal anyways. You take one person out of the body. A body that's been perfectly built by Christ and perfectly balanced, you take that one member out and the whole body no longer functions. If you are functioning in this body, you keep going with all your might. If you're not, come on. If you say, well, I don't even know what I'm supposed to do. Well, then get with a group of Christians, get with some of the leaders and ask them. I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out because there's a world to win. And there's glory to get for our God, for our God. Again, thank you so much. Thank you so much for allowing us to be here and to become a part. Of you, thank you and thank you for sticking here those years when it was really tough. Because God's going to use it. He has and he will. So let's pray, Father.