***The following is an unedited auto-generated transcript and may contain serious errors and speakers other than Dallas Willard. It is included here to assist your study. Please check the original audio for an authentic record of the event.
Dallas: Be very conscious that we’re coming before the King. And we’re coming before our Savior through a new and living way. Let’s remind ourselves that he taught us that whatsoever things we should ask in prayer believing, we should receive. And now as we draw ourselves together, let us be definite in our minds as to those things which we would have. Let’s think about our needs and the needs of those that we love and be very precise as we pray. Our gracious Lord, we are thankful indeed that you are always accessible to us, that because of the work and the merits of Christ and because of his reality in our lives, we are in touch with you. And we are alive in your kingdom. We are thankful for the reality of it, to know that it is so, and to understand how that we can count upon it and rely upon it. And to know that it has come through repeatedly in the past and that you are always there. That whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, calling him indeed Lord, their Lord, shall be saved in whatever respect or aspect of life. They are in need. So this morning we bring the needs of this great congregation and all who are associated with it before you. And we ask that you would accomplish your will in every life, that those who are in hard places should be touched by your grace, but those who are in doubt and who are in pain and worry and in confusion might receive the clarity of your word in this hour or as they walk by the wayside or as they work or as they live in their homes or wherever they may be, that you may speak to them and give them guidance and help them to look unto you in everything. We pray for all of the physical needs that are represented. We know that many are in pain and in sickness. There are many who are facing death, who are facing disability, and we pray that you will be with them in every respect. That you will teach them that even in the valley of the shadow of death, you are present and beyond in a life more glorious than we can conceive. Now, give them that assurance. Speak the word that creates faith in their heart. Do so in this hour and afterwards. Bless now every undertaking of this church, the pastor who is to come, all of the officers and those who attend, those who simply come to listen, for theirs is an important part and help them to understand and see that it is. All of the undertakings of mission and evangelism, all of the undertakings of charity and love and reaching out to those in need in the community, let your hand of blessing be upon this congregation, for we pray it in Jesus’ name and for his sake. Amen.
19th chapter of the gospel according to Luke. I shall be reading a little longer portion than we might normally do. The first 27 verses in Luke 19. I want to set the stage for the parable upon which I shall be dwelling in the message to follow. Luke chapter 19, beginning at the first verse.
Jesus is going up to Jerusalem now to be eventually to be crucified, to be rejected and destroyed by the leaders of his people. He has set his face. He knows what is going to happen. He has told his followers they do not believe it because he’s in a time of great public popularity and people are expecting great things to happen. All was of course on the model of what they would call a great thing. And now as Jesus goes up, he must go through Jericho. And as he goes through Jericho, a number of interesting things happen. He heals some people and as he goes down the street, the people are thronging his way.
And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho and behold there was a man named Zacchaeus which was the chief among the publicans and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus who he was and could not because of the crowd, because he was short before and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see him. For he was to pass that way.
And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and he saw him and he said unto him, Zacchaeus make haste and come down for today I must abide at thy house. And he made haste and he came down and he received him joyfully.
And when they saw it, they all murmured, complained, saying, well, he has gone to be a guest with a man that is a sinner.
And Zacchaeus stood up and said unto the Lord, behold Lord the half of my goods I give unto the poor. And if I’ve taken anything from any man by false accusation, he was a tax collector you will understand or a tax assessor and collector, they were both in the same one. If I’ve taken anything from any man, if you wish, by a false assessment, I restore him fourfold.
Jesus said unto him, this day is salvation, come unto this house for as much as he also is a son of Abraham, for the son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable because he was nigh unto Jerusalem and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear.
He said unto them, a certain noble man went into a far country to be appointed king and to return. And he called his 10 servants and delivered them 10 pounds and said to them, occupy until I come or do business with this money until I come. But his citizens hated him. And he sent a message after him saying, we will not have this man to reign over us.
And it came to pass that when he was returned after receiving the kingdom, then he commanded those servants to be called to him to whom he had given money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading. And then came the first saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained 10 pounds. And he said unto him, well, good servant, because thou hast been faithful in a very little, in a very little, thou hast been faithful, have authority over 10 cities. And the second came saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained five pounds. And he said, likewise to him, be thou also over five cities.
And another came saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin, because I was afraid of you, because you are an austere man. Thou takest up what thou latest not down and reapest that which thou didst not sow. And he said unto him, out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant, thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up what I laid not down and reaping what I did not sow. Wherefore then gavest not thou my money to the bank that at my coming I might have required mine own with interest.
And he said unto them that stood by, take from him the pound and give to him that hath 10 pounds. And they said, well, Lord, he’s already got 10 pounds. And the Lord said, that’s all right. Unto every one that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not, even what he hath, shall be taken away from him.
On the other hand, those my enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before me.
May God add his blessing to the reading of this word. Thank you, Alan. I am glad to see you once again and to have the opportunity to minister to you these two Sundays. I’m especially glad to know that you now have selected a pastor and that you’ve come together to go forward to do the work that the Lord has appointed for you in this San Fernando Valley and reaching out around the world. I trust that you will pray for me this morning and next Sunday as I speak. I believe that the ministry of the word of God is not something that one can do by preparing clever or profound sayings. It is a matter of being upheld by God in the moment of the ministry so that there is something more happening than some wise guy standing up and talking. And so I will covet your prayers and ask you please to think of me as you go through the week and as we come together each time.
Let’s return now to the parable which I read just a moment ago before the song in the 19th chapter of Luke. And I want to tell you very simply what Jesus is doing here. He is describing something that has happened many times over and over again and again in the kind of society in which he lived. Let’s first of all remember that he lived in a society of people who were subjugated to a foreign emperor, a king, who was elsewhere. In this case, he was of course in Rome. But throughout the history of the world, you have had subjugated people suppressed, put down, conquered by another country.
Now then, whenever someone comes into a country and subjugates them to their rule, they have a problem. How are they going to do the ruling? And one of the standard ways of doing this is of course to appoint someone from among the people that have been subjected to the rule to appoint them to do the governing. It’s done over and over and over. We speak today of a puppet dictator sometimes. But the people who lived in Jesus’ day were governed by, if you wish, puppet dictators. Herod was one such person. Pilate was not directly the governor of the Jewish people at that time. He was the Roman governor. He was the representative of the Roman government. But the king, the relevant king, if you wish, in Jesus’ life was Herod.
Jesus is talking about just such a situation as that. The parable says, verse 12, a certain nobleman went into a far country to be appointed king and to come back and rule. That’s what he’s talking about. He went to, let us say, Rome or Moscow or wherever it might be to get his papers and to be appointed king, and then he was going to come back and rule. And while he was gone, a very interesting thing happened, something with which we are very familiar today. He gave his favorite servants responsibilities. He told them what they were to do and set them to work. And it was his thought that when he returned, he would have to appoint officers, of course, under him, to carry out the work of governing his province.
Another interesting thing happened. While he was gone, verse 14, his citizens hated him. And they sent a message to the one who was going to appoint him their king, and he said to them, we will not have this man to reign over us. He doesn’t please us. All of that is as familiar as the newspapers, is it not? The kind of political lobbying, pressuring, insisting we will have this man, we will not have that man, threats, we will not have this man, we will cause an insurrection, we will rise up against him.
Now that gives you the situation, and the response of the man who received the kingdom is very simple. When he comes back, he has to deal with three classes of people. First of all, his good servants, effective people, people who took his word seriously, and went to work, and accomplished what was good. Secondly, the class of ineffectual servants. Those who, for whatever reasons, and in this case, it’s a very interesting reason, one of his servants was so frightened of this man that he wouldn’t take the risk of working for him. He would simply try to hold what he had and give it back to him when he came. But that’s the class of the ineffectual servant as represented in the parable. And in general, when the man returned with his kingdom intact, with all of his authority and his appointment clear, he had to deal with the class of ineffectual servants. And his response to those was to take away what they had and give it to those who were effective. And then thirdly, he had to deal with the class of those who said, we will not have this man to reign over us. And the way he did that was he took them out and lined them up against a wall and turned a machine gun loose on them and that was the end of them. Now I put it in that brutal way because I want you to realize that this is a parable. And a parable is not intended to teach on every point. So we must not go to this parable or to any parable and try to draw a spiritual lesson from every point. Above all, we must not conclude simply that the kind of brutality we see in this man is to be attributed to the Lord Jesus Christ. Not at all. Jesus is taking, as he always did, a common experience, a simple thing which everyone understood. And he’s telling the story to make a point and the point is this. The point was because Jesus had created so much excitement, people expected that he should now take over the political reigns of the government and establish the political, literal, economic, social kingdom of God under his leadership on the earth at that time. If you will observe verse 11 of Luke 19, and as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable. He gives his reason. Because he was nigh to Jerusalem and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear. You see, he wanted to undermine, for those who had ears to hear, he wanted to undermine the thought that he was going up to Jerusalem for the purpose of subverting the government and becoming the king.
There was going to be no quick and total fix. None. That’s what they wanted. They could see it coming so clearly that they were haggling and arguing over who was going to get to be Secretary of State and who was going to get to be Chancellor of the Exeter and who was going to get to be the public relations man and how they were going to divide the power up. They were hotly debating that issue. And Jesus is saying to them in this parable, lay it all at rest, lay it all at rest. I am not going to bring in the kingdom in the form that you expect at this time. There will be no quick and total fix of all of your problems.
Jesus said to them, in the world you shall have tribulation. Fear not, I have overcome the world. Paul in the 20th chapter of Acts and speaking to the Ephesian elders on the last time in which he spoke to them said, it is necessary that you enter the kingdom of God through much tribulation. In 1 Peter the fourth chapter it is. We hear Peter saying, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened unto you.
We are looking for the quick fix. We are looking for the total solution and there’s not going to be one because we are not babies in a crib. We are God’s free rational creations and we are given the appointed task of a place in life in which we will stand in the kingdom of God and grow up and become co-laborers with God. And that will not happen because someone comes by and in a holy tone of voice shake some holy dust on your head. It will happen through the process of growth. It will happen through the process of faith which works by love. It will happen through a process of sustained hope that leads you to step forward day by day in such a manner that you meet the co-working of God as you live in his kingdom.
I was very grateful for the words in the good news notes. Words of warning against the attitude, well since we have a pastor, we can slack off. We can sort of turn it over to him. Now let me tell you something. You have got a peculiar church here. You have got a people that is called something special and if you put that on your pastor, you’ll destroy him. If you expect him to carry that load, you will wipe him out, you will kill him. There is no quick and total solution in the church that is designed by turning it over to someone and saying you’re the king, you run the thing. We’ll sit by and watch and congratulate you if you succeed.
There is no quick and total solution in your life. I grieve that one of the things that is done in a misguided zeal for evangelism in our day is to cause people to believe that whatever their problems are, if they just will come to Christ, they will all be solved immediately. That is false. It will not happen that way.
If you come to Christ, all of your problems will be solved ultimately if you follow him. And some of them will be solved immediately if you accept him. But there is no quick fix. Christ is the answer indeed. But you’d better stay around a while to see what the answer is. Christ is the answer. But he is the one who said follow me. He is the one who invited us to follow and to live and to abide in his commandments, to open our lives to him, to go unto all the world with him, to teach all men to do everything that he commanded. And that’s the answer. The total Christ for the total life, not some quick fix.
And we need the words of this parable so badly. Yes, Christ is the answer. If we accept him as our Lord and we accept his divine appointment, occupy your place. Occupy where you are until I come.
Now the old version, I like those words, occupy until I come. But perhaps the New American Standard and the other versions give a better translation which simply means do business with these. He gave them the money. He gave them the pounds as it says here. And he says now do business with these until I come.
I want to ask you a very simple question. What is it that has been given to you to do business with? What is it that you are to work with? And I want to pursue that question and answer it in some detail because we must always be careful in presenting the gospel to get beyond metaphors. Let me ask you very simply and answer the question myself. What is it? What is it that has been given to you, every one of you? Man, woman, boy, girl, old, young, all. What is it that we have that we are to occupy until we come? Let me answer in a way which may seem strange to you but I believe is absolutely true.
The first thing you have is your body. Your body. That’s where you are in this world. It is your body. And you have that in a primary way which is even more fundamental than your mind. It is because we are incarnate beings. You’ll remember that great messianic passage in the 10th chapter of Hebrew in which the writer quoting from the Old Testament says sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not but a body thou hast prepared for me.
Let me tell you, God gave you your body. God appointed your body and it is through your body that you are in this world. Let me ask you this. Why is it that you are the daughter, the son, the father, the mother that you are? Could you be that without your body? No. It is your body that puts you into the framework of personal relationships. It locates you in space. It puts you in time and that body is prepared by God for you.
It is necessary to talk about these things. I think sometimes we get so convinced that there’s something wrong with the body that it couldn’t possibly be the place which God has appointed for me. Let me remind you that one of the first heresies that arose around Jesus Christ was the conviction that he didn’t have a real body, that he was not flesh and blood. That’s the point of the remarks in the epistle of John. He that denieth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is the antichrist. Why is he the antichrist? Because he denies the nature of Christ and in particular he denies the incarnational fact. You must be very sure, you must be very sure that it is the same incarnating Christ that comes to you and says make your body my temple. And many people have tried to give their lives to God but they’ve thought only in terms of their mind and they have not thought in terms of their hands and their lips and their feet. You remember that Paul in the opening of the 12th chapter of Romans says that we are to present our bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God.
Have you ever presented your body to God? Now let me say that beyond the body there are your personal relationships. Why is he the antichrist? Because he denies the nature of Christ and in particular he denies the incarnational fact. You must be very sure, you must be very sure that it is the same incarnating Christ that comes to you and says make your body my temple. And many people have tried to give their lives to God but they’ve thought only in terms of their mind and they have not thought in terms of their hands and their lips and their feet. You remember that Paul in the opening of the 12th chapter of Romans says that we are to present our bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God.
Have you ever presented your body to God? Now let me say that beyond the body there are your personal relationships. All of that is given to us to occupy until he comes. All of that is given to us to say this is the temple of God. This is what I give.
Let me mention three dimensions of this total reality now and very quickly draw attention to the most important things I think that we have to attend to in looking at the command to occupy until we come. And I’m going to give you three words, each beginning with a W to help us remember it. Worship, work, and witness. Worship, work, and witness. These three great dimensions in which we bring all of the physical and total reality that we are before God, worship, work, or service, and witness. And I’ve put them in this order because that is the order in which they exist. If the worship is right, the work will be right, the service will be right. If the service and the work is right, the witness will be right. But if the work is not right, forget the witness, no matter what your mouth says, your life will contradict it. And you’ll be like a lawyer standing in a court, attempting to plead a case, and every word that comes out of the mouth of the witnesses, which he calls contradicts what he wants them to believe. And if your worship is not right, your work will be a back and soul crushing burden. Use that vest to bolster your pride and to grind others down. It is worship first, it is the heart first. It is the mind directed upon God first, and then work. It is work, and then it is witness. A few words on each of these things.
What is worship? Worship is not something which we do at special times and on special occasions. It is a total attitude of adoration and of creating what is of worth in God. I don’t know if you’ve thought about the word worship itself but it is a combination of two old and Middle English terms. One of which means worth, worth. That’s where the war comes in the worship, is from work. And the other, ship, which is associated, some of you I know are German in background, you know the word schaff, as in Wissenschaft, Gemeinschaft, and so on. Ship and schaff are associated. And they mean to create, to ordain, to appoint, to make it so. And to worship is to make God out as worthy, to show the goodness of God, and to bring his goodness to pass in the world. I love the words of William Law in his book called, where he says, He therefore is the devout man who lives no longer to his own will, or the way and spirit of the world, but to the sole will of God, who considers God in everything, who serves God in everything, who makes all of the parts of his common life, parts of piety, by doing everything in the name of God, and under such rules as are conformable to his glory. That’s worship.
Let me read a word from the 16th Psalm to you. The mind is fixed upon God in this attitude. The determination to please him in everything. In the 16th Psalm we read, I will bless the Lord who hath given me counsel. My reigns also instruct me in the night seasons. And listen to these words now in the eighth verse. I have set the Lord always before me. I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand. Therefore I shall not be moved. Listen to these words from the 26th of Isaiah. Very familiar to all of you, I’m sure. Thou will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee.
Worship is a matter of fixing the mind upon God in all of his glory, and living one’s life before him, so that one can, in the words of Paul, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that one can, in the words of Paul again, in everything give thanks, because this is the will of God concerning you. In everything, no matter what the circumstance may be, because the mind is fixed upon God, the soul is kept in perfect peace, and joy flows from it, because the act of worship is right. I wish I had time to take that horrendous first chapter of Romans and show you how that process of devolution, which resulted in the fallen condition of society. In three different verses, Paul points out that that whole process depended upon the rejection of the knowledge of God from the mind. They would not retain God in their knowledge. Therefore, he rejected them. It is the retaining of God in our knowledge. It is seeing him as he is in all of his majesty, in all of his loving kindness, in all of his greatness, and holding that image before us, which guides us in a life of worship. And without that, everything else is wrong. Everything else is wrong. Everything else is wrong.
Secondly, we see the model of occupying till he comes in the servanthood of Christ. I read a verse from the 13th chapter of the Gospel of John. This is at the last supper, and Jesus arises and washes their feet and cleans the feet with the towel that is girt about him. The reason he did that was because they needed to have their feet washed. Their feet were dirty. They were tired. And he saw that they were too proud to wash one another’s feet. And there was no one who was willing to take the place of the servant and wash the feet of his fellows. You know, in those days, they didn’t have these nice shoes that we have now. They had to walk along the dirty road. And when they came in, I don’t know if you’ve ever run around barefooted very much, but your feet get kind of dirty. They get kind of tired and grimy. And of course, they do that sometimes with their shoes on too. But when you’re barefoot, you’ve got lots of need to have your feet washed. And so it was a polite and good act when visitors came, you wash the feet. But now here, they’re in a room, and there is no general guest, you see, to wash their feet. And not a one of these people is willing to wash the feet of the rest. After all, these are the people who are worried about who’s going to get to be Secretary of State. They’re not about to go wash someone’s feet and show thereby that they might be less than them.
Notice what Jesus does. He washes their feet. And in verse 14, he says, If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you, mutual submission in loving service, meeting the needs of others. That is the place of work.
Just as we make a mistake in thinking of worship as special times and special places, so we make a mistake in thinking of our work as a job. A job should be part of our work, but our work is service, loving service, done in obedience and in fellowship with God and following Christ, loving service to those who are around us and accepting loving service from them in return. That’s our work. Our job is a part of that. That’s why I teach. That’s my work as a teacher. It is a part of a general life which has to be given in loving service to others. No matter where you may be or what you may do, that’s what your job is to be. And when you see it as a part of that calling and that vocation to be the loving servant of those around you, then you will begin to occupy your place until He comes.
Let me quickly move on to the third point, and that of witness. I have been enjoying thinking about Dr. Fickett’s message last Sunday night. I hope you were there. If you were there, you will remember that he said something very important, and I think it may be missed, and I want to stress it. If you recall that he said, those who are born again, those who have truly been regenerated, want to share what they have got. That is the act of witness. And what I want to point out to you is this. He did not say, if you are born again, you will be a soul winner.
One of the most grievous things that has happened to the evangelical church in our time has been the failure to distinguish witnessing from soul winning. Everyone has a witness. You will notice I said everyone has a witness. Not everyone is supposed to witness. Everyone has a witness. Everyone witnesses to what is in their heart. You cannot hide what is in your heart. Jesus taught us, did he not, that a man does not build a city, a city that is on a hill, he said, could not be hid. He said, a man does not light a lamp and put it under a bushel. And if God has lit your light, you cannot hide it. Jesus went to get away on a vacation in the seventh chapter of Mark, and he tried to hide, but the scripture says he could not be hid. Do you think if he could not be hid in Syrophoenicia, he can be hid in your heart? He cannot be hid in your heart, and if he is there, there will be a witness, and if he is not there, there will be a witness. You’re going to witness one way or the other, but in our time there’s been great harm done by saying that everyone must be a soul winner. That is not true. Everyone should be associated with a group in which soul winning is going on, but not everyone is to be a soul winner. I’ve seen many dear and devout people hurt gravely because they were told, and a great burden of guilt was loaded upon them, that they should be getting decisions for Christ. That is not true. That is not true. That is not true. I stand before God and say it is not true, and I am ready and willing to face the judgment with that statement on me, because I want you to understand it is not true. It is not true, and I say it over and over, because it has become one of those pieces of bondage. And I know many people who are trying to win souls, and when they go to witness, their witness contradicts the message of their lips, because they’re filled with despair, they’re filled with manipulation and fear, they’re filled with self-justification and self-righteousness.
The pattern of witness is set very clearly for us in 1 Peter 3 15. Always be ready, always be ready to give a reason to any man for the hope that is in you. Who is a witness? A witness is, first of all, someone who knows something. A witness is not just someone who talks. A witness is someone who has witnessed something. They have seen it, they know it. A witness is someone, in this case, the Christian witness is one who, because of what they have seen, they are filled with hope. In a world in which others are cast down and destroyed by despair, they’re filled with hope. And people look at them and say, what’s wrong with you? What makes you hopeful in these circumstances? And then Peter says, be ready to give a reason to everyone who asks for the hope that is within you.
When we draw these three things together, the worship, the work, the service of love, and the witness, we begin to understand that full dimension of life in which we can occupy richly until He comes. Let me ask you, in closing this morning, are you occupying your place for Him? Are you occupying your place for Him? Is that is that what you’re doing? Is that a correct description of your body, of your personal relation, of your business, of everything you do? Is that a correct description of your hopes for this church? Is that a correct description of your hopes for your family and for your children? Are you occupying until He comes?
A wise teacher by the name of John Joseph Surin was once asked, why is it when there are so many people who seem to want to serve God, there are so few saints? He replied very simply. He said, it is because people commonly place too great a stress on things which really do not matter. Things which really do not matter.
Now let me tell you very simply, there is only one way that you can counteract the drag of the indifferent things that fill your life, and that is to have very clearly before your mind, very clearly before your mind, a definite, well-outlined, well-thought-out purpose. For which you are living. If you do not have something like that in mind, you will have no place to stand when the trivia of ordinary life come and begin to push over here. I know a church not too far from here that spent two years of its life debating about how the pews were to be placed in the auditorium. Should we have them facing this way? Should we have them facing one another? Should we have them in the square and the pulpit in the center? Should we have them at an angle? Oh, really now, huh? I mean, you see, that’s just typical. I could go on and on and on. If you want to read what Jesus thought about this, this afternoon, read the 23rd chapter of Matthew, and watch how he constantly saw the way that people were taking the trivia, the insignificant, the indifferent, and elevating it into the total reality of their spiritual lives. And it killed them spiritually.
Now let me ask you individually, every one of you, every one of you, we all stand before God. Let me ask you this. What are you living for? Why are you working? Why are you doing what you do? Why do you spend the time you spend the way you spend it? Every one of us stands before God on that question. To every one of us, he says, occupy till I come. Young and old, whether we’ve got lots of money or not, whether we’re well educated or not, it does not matter. We have a place. God has given us a place. He’s given those pounds to us. And he says to us, now occupy until I come. You cannot occupy by coming to church faithfully, if that’s all you do. Church is not your primary place. It is an important place, but your primary place is your life. Church should have a place in that life. You’ve got to have it. You need it. It’s vital. But it is not your life. What are you doing? What are you doing with your life? Occupy until I come.
Let’s bow together in prayer. Every one of us, myself, you, all of us, stand before this charge. Let me ask you now, before we come to sing, and we’re going to have an invitation in just a moment, but before we come to sing, I wanted to speak to the great mass of you. Most of you, it would not be appropriate or helpful if you did come forward. Some it would be, but I want to speak to all of you. And let me ask you very simply, in this moment, in your place, in your life, have you surrendered it? Have you taken it up to be the person for God in that place? Are you occupying that place for God? Are you honoring that place for God? Are you bringing God into that place? I fear that in many cases an honest answer would be no. And I would like to ask you to take this solemn moment to say, yes, I will, by God’s grace. I will stand here as the vicar of Christ, the representative of Christ. I will be the light of the world, the salt of the earth, and this place for the glory of God. Will you do that? Let us pray together. Let us pray together. Lord, take our thoughts, take our feelings, our choices, and empower them as they are directed toward Thee, so that it might come to pass for Thy glory and for the good of all of us, for the prosperity of Thy kingdom we should all stand in the place of the profitable servant, no matter how little it is we have, surrendering it to You and watching the increase come. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now we’re going to stand and sing. And those of you who have a need in your heart to make public a decision, whether to join this church or to profess your faith before this group, or whatever need you may have, there will be those here to meet you, and I’ll be here if you wish to speak to me, and we’ll be able to help you in whatever way is appropriate in this hour. Let us stand together as Alan comes to lead us.