Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to the Erickson Covenant Podcast. When I was so glad you've joined
[00:00:07] Speaker B: us today, Marina grabbed my arm in the foyer.
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Church we seek to find.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: She straightened the eyes and said, and
[00:00:15] Speaker A: to discover daily the life he has always lived for us.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: You were going to be a preacher someday.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: We hope this message will be encouraging.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: And then she let me go and
[00:00:21] Speaker A: will inspire you to take the next steps on your spiritual life.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Marina is one of the most expressive worshipers in my hometown Pentecostal Church. The easiest apple she was Mary. And Marina exuded the love of Jesus and the joy of her salvation.
As a Cree woman, she loved to dance and sing and prophesy and pray, always giving praise to her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And she kind of intimidated me.
And now here she was, prophetically pronouncing my future over me, shining eyes filled with confidence. You are going to be a preacher someday.
What do you say to that when you're 12?
[00:01:05] Speaker A: Yes, ma'.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Am. Yeah, what do you say to that when she does it again six months later?
And then randomly and without warning, she just pounces on you throughout your teenage years, Just reminding you.
Well, I would duck.
I squirmed, I dodged, and I fainted.
Not literally fainted, you know, fainted.
And then I preached my first sermon when I was 15 years old with her smiling right over there in the corner. I remember exactly where she would sit.
I don't remember what I preached about. I remember it was from the book of Ephesians. I remember it was about 12 minutes long.
Is it really a sermon when it's only 12 minutes long though? I mean, really, what happened? Hey, yeah. Yeah. More to say, apparently.
Well, with a spirit led insight, Marina saw God's call on my life before I did and she bravely called me out. I'm not sure what Marina saw, but I'm thankful that she loved me enough to say it. And the Lord spoke through this indigenous sister of mine to convince and to confirm something that he was doing in me. Because it turned out God was also, also speaking to me through His Word. Nudging me, urging me, guiding me, forming me.
As I shared with you last week, the Holy Spirit was nurturing in my young teenage self a delight in His Word. And I was chewing into the Bible. I was ruminating on it and marking it up and reading it and drinking it down every chance I could. And through his life giving word, the Father was training me for the task he had planned before I was even aware that I had one.
God does speak to his children through his other children and through his brothers and sisters in Christ, who know you, who love you, who are listening to the Spirit, who are trained in His Word, they're able to speak a word of grace and truth into your life. God also speaks through random circumstances and through our conscience.
And occasionally even God speaks through special signs.
But above all other means and with authority over all other voices, our triune God speaks to us through his inspired word, the Holy Bible.
Through this living book, God reveals Himself to us, teaches us who he is, showing us what he wants and what it means to be in a relationship with him both now and and forever.
God speaks more than any other way through his written word.
And his written word is trustworthy and is true.
We can fully rely on the Bible to discern or measure or nuance or deny or confirm any other voice that we hear speaking to us through how God has spoken through His Word. Well, welcome to this second week of a series that we're doing right now called When God Speaks. As a preaching team, we're going to be sharing more personal messages, almost testimonies of a sort, reflecting on times when God spoke to us through His Word and helped us grow in Christ. As was already mentioned, I'm heading off on sabbatical for the month of May. And can I just give a little side here? Cause there's a few people, you hear the word sabbatical and you think, burned out, fried. He's gonna quit, he's looking for another church.
I'm not. Okay. None of those things are true. I'm just looking forward to a month on the island of, you know, off.
I don't wanna tell you where I'm going.
I know I'm looking forward to a month on Bowen island and I'm finishing the book that I'm working on. I'm not burned out. I. I love you guys. I'm already excited about the series. I'm gonna preach when I get back. And so just thank you for the sabbatical. It's wonderful, but everything's good. Okay. So we also though we were working on a series that would kind of carry us through this month of May and it's terrific. I met with the preaching team on Monday and I am so excited about what you're gonna hear through them. They have great messages queued up for you. You're gonna be so encouraged, so blessed. I'm gonna have to catch it I online when I'm gone.
Well, today I want to share with you From Isaiah, chapter 6, a passage of scripture that a profound direction Setting impact on me as a young man. You're hearing a bit more of my testimony today. We heard it during our corporate scripture reading just a few moments ago. But let's walk through it together a bit now.
So Isaiah, chapter 6.
In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah served over the reign of four Kings.
This is the first one. King Uzziah died.
I this is Isaiah. I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne. And the train of his robe filled the temple.
Above him were seraphim, each with six wings. With two wings they covered their faces.
With two they covered their feet. And with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is filled, is full of his glory.
At the sound of their voices, the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
What a scene. Hey, can you imagine it? It's actually hard to imagine.
Can you feel it a bit.
Isaiah receives this epic vision of the Most High God in full majesty, in holy splendor. And it is awe.
That's the real meaning of that word.
Aw, some.
The king may have just died, but clearly the throne is not empty.
Isaiah's people were a sinful wreck, but the holy God still ruled. And this vision that Isaiah received changes everything in his life.
Eyes wide at the majesty and power of the Lord, with angelic beings flying and praising, Isaiah hears the greatest song to ever grace the lips of any being anywhere. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory. It was better than any rock concert you've ever been at with the volume up to 11.
And the voice is shaking the building, filling the atmosphere with smoke.
Oh man. Brings back a memory. But that's okay.
This is an awe inspiring, fear inducing, human humbling vision of the Lord all in his terrifying glory and magnificent holiness. It's like eyes up front and look, look. This is the true God. This is the High King. This is the exalted Lord. And he is not to be trifled with. Not that anyone could trifle with him.
And that vision of the Lord and all his power and might and holiness and otherness and exaltedness. With the thunderous strains of Holy, Holy, Holy. It evokes an automatic response, a reaction in Isaiah, an automatic right response to this. God revealed. Verse 5. Woe is me, I cried.
I am ruined.
For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips. And my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.
Isaiah is instantly struck by his precarious position as an unholy man before a holy God, as a man with unclean hearing the holy song on the lips of the seraphim angels, as a man whose people have forsaken the most high God, this most high God, he instinctively realizes his ruination.
For this holy God cannot share space with unholy creatures, and Isaiah instantly knows it.
This high pure God cannot consort with the low and the unclean. And Isaiah cries out his woe.
Having glimpsed God's holiness, he's struck immediately by his sin.
As one commentator I read put it, to see God means to perceive sin.
Because the comparison is pretty scary.
It's inescapable.
Let me ask you something, just to the side for a moment.
Could it be that our general lack of concern for sin, that our infrequent confession of sin, our lackadaisical response to our own sinful attitudes, our own careless ways, our covert rebellion, our wicked gossip, our mean judgmentalism, our unclean hearts and minds and hands and ways, could this all be traced back to this simple fact?
We have never seen this holy God.
We're not even sure we believe there is a holy God before whom we should we glimpse him, would wet our pants and our knees would knock and we'd cry out in this stark, horrifying realization that we cannot abide his presence. Because surely, most surely, that holy God cannot abide ours.
Before the true holiness of God. We are instantly judged, shown up as unholy before the pure holiness of God. Our impurities are exposed like a bright light shining on a stained shirt.
Exposed for what they are ugly, wrong, wicked, filthy, disgusting and in need of removal.
Have we ever had a vision of God and his holiness?
And where would we get it?
That's why we need the Bible.
Because it turns out this is one of the central revelations that comes to us through the Word of God. Not some vague notion you get when you're looking at a big mountain, as wonderful as that is.
Not some fearful feeling you get when you think. When you stand on the edge of that mountain and look down a cliff and think, oh, that must be something. No, no, not this vague sense of a God who might crush you. No, this revelation that comes to us through the word of God.
This is central to our understanding of who God is. And it comes to us through the Bible. It's why we must read and meditate and hear the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, from the creation, through the law, through the story of God's. Covenant people.
And we even need to spend some time, some important time, in understanding how it is that this God is holy, which explains why he gave these weird laws to his people coming out of Egypt.
It was so that his people, his people who were so steeped in sin, who were so familiar with other gods and so given over to idolatry, so that they would actually know who he was, the God who rescued them in order to reveal his holiness to his people, so that they in turn would be holy as he was holy. And so in books like Exodus or Leviticus, maybe you haven't danced into those. Maybe you have, and you turned around quick and got out. I'm not sure.
But we can wonder, why would God care about how people prepare their food?
Or why is people, how they deal with mold in the house or where they crap in the camp, or how to offer proper sacrifices, or this and that. Each one of these, though, underscoring a profound revelation.
The God who's rescued them from slavery is a holy God, and he's revealing his holiness to his people one law at a time, one day at a time, one journey at a time, one prophet at a time, so that his people will know him as holy, so that they will be holy as he is holy.
God's holiness pulsates through the whole arc of scripture, through the prophets who are calling God's very unholy people back to the holiness of God, to the holiness of life, back to life itself, right through to the arrival of the Holy God himself in the person of Jesus Christ, who revealed God in all of his holiness, in all of his purity. And he did so perfectly. Have you ever had a vision of God's holiness?
You can't get it without this.
Because through this living word, God has revealed Himself for who he is, culminating in the death and the resurrection of Jesus, the Holy Jesus for our unholy lives. And then capped off by this great throne room scene that we were able to sort of enter into a little bit in our musical time, with the angels singing, holy, holy, holy. And God the Father displayed in all his magnificent holiness, revealed the Lamb at the center of the home center of the throne, before whom we're now singing worthy, worthy, worthy.
In response to this revelation of God's holiness, we, like Isaiah, we confess our wicked, sinful ruination personally and corporately before this God we cannot stand because we have nothing to stand on, nothing to offer up, nothing to say or to do that's going to somehow shift us back into the right something that we can do that's going to save us from. From our sin. And so we just kind of wilt and cry, woe is me.
Woe is me.
And yet, beautifully, wonderfully, unexpectedly, we then discover something that's been hidden from our eyes, something that might have been obscured by all the lights and the voices and the smoke and the trembling, something that our eyes might have missed and our ears might not have heard because they were so filled with the majesty of God and His infinite power. God's holiness is fully revealed and magnified through God's love.
For this holy God is love.
Isaiah cringes in fear, accepting his rightful ruin.
And yet this holy God does not burn him to a crisp, doesn't lash out in anger, doesn't crush him into oblivion or consign him to the darkness. This holy God is immediately offers cleansing and forgiveness to the unclean, immediately offers atonement to the sinner, to the penitent, the repentant. God's mercy to the sinner is instant, immediate. And it's just one of the ways that God really is holy. The word holy means set apart, entirely different, wholly other, nothing like it.
God is holy in his love. He really is different. And other than any other God you can imagine any other being, any other person, any other idea. Because this holy God loves unholy creatures and longs for their cleansing, their holiness.
And he goes after them, and he gives all of himself for them.
And so from one of the singing seraphim who was proclaiming the holiness of God comes a cleansing coal from the very altar of God. I like the fact that he uses tongs, but still touches Isaiah on the lips, right?
Can you see how the holiness of God is now expressed through the grace of God? Rather than burning Isaiah up, he burns up his sin.
The holiness of God is the purity of God, a purity of love and of grace and of goodness. And it applies to all sinners who realize their ruination and cry out for mercy. Verse 6. Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, see, this has touched your lips.
Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for. You can see why people sometimes call it the Gospel of Isaiah.
A holy God forgives an unholy man, cleansing him of his guilt, atoning for his sin. It's a gift freely given. Isaiah did not deserve it. Isaiah could not have earned it. And yet it's offered to him freely and without charge. It changes his life.
And that's why this is the message we proclaim now as we let our little light shine and we point people to Jesus, we can say, if we confess our sins, he is faithful. Who is faithful? This Holy God, this exalted Lord, this High King. He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
For in Romans 10, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
But will anyone cry out for forgiveness who doesn't realize that they have sinned?
Will anyone cry out for mercy from God if they don't know they stand in need of it?
Will anyone cry, woe is me? Without the stunning revelation that there's a holy God before whom we should tremble in order to receive forgiveness, we have to realize our need for it and our helplessness without God's grace. But in order for us to realize our desperate need, we must see the Lord our high and lifted up, holy in his power and majesty and love.
Pray for that revelation.
There might be people in your life where you're thinking, I don't know how to break through to them. I don't know how they're ever going to realize their need for Jesus. Pray for that revelation.
Pray that they will turn to the word of God and realize who God is and who they are.
We have to acknowledge the rightful, justified judgment that we deserve as sinners before a holy God in order to discover the surprising, elational, mind blowing fact that this holy God is a God of holy grace who offers us his righteousness, his holiness, through his holy Son, Jesus. Jesus who never sinned, Jesus who is pure Jesus, who is perfect holiness. Jesus steps into our sinful place and takes our sins upon himself so that we can be cleansed and made holy in Him. That's the whole story.
That's the gospel, that's the good news, and that's what transforms us. God's holy touch. We stand forgiven in Christ, holy now because of Him.
And not only are we wrapped in the holiness of Christ, but this holy God comes to live inside of us. So we're even called Temples of the Holy Spirit. It's an astonishing fact that this God, with the train of his robe filling the temple, high and exalted, lifted up. You know, smoke and thunder is in you.
Whoo.
The Holy God comes to live inside of us and he continues to transform us into the holy image of His Holy Son so that our mindset, our behavior, our attitudes, our hearing, our thinking, our perception, our understanding, our way of Relating our understanding of the world, our understanding of each other, our understanding of the church, the way we think about our money, the way we think about our kids, the way that we think about politics, the way that we think about the future is transformed by Jesus, his holiness in us. And we're being renewed by the Holy Spirit through His holy word. And as a result, we begin to hear and see differently. See what happens to Isaiah in the story. Man, I spit so bad, I spit on my own glasses.
This is why we have all this space up front.
You see how this happens for Isaiah.
The moment he's cleansed, you know, that coal touches his lips.
He hears his atonement pronounced.
The moment that happens, he hears another voice ringing through the throne room.
And it's not the voices of praising angels. They're there. They're in the background. They never stop, those guys. Or the singing seraphim. Holy, holy, holy. But he hears the voice of the holy Lord himself.
And what do you know?
He's asking a question.
Then I heard the voice of the Lord. This is verse eight, saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us?
Isaiah is cleansed by God, and now he hears God clearly.
Without the atoning forgiveness of God, we cannot hear his voice.
In the book of Hebrews, we're told that without holiness, no one can see the Lord. Well, apparently no one would be able to hear him either.
But when we've trusted in Jesus and we've received his forgiveness and we're wrapped in his holiness, and the Holy Spirit has come into our lives and we receive what we could not earn for ourselves through the righteousness of Jesus, the Holy One, well, then, with cleansed hearts and with washed minds and with unstopped ears, we now are able to hear the words of the Lord.
As we're told in one of Paul's letters, we now have the spirit of God within us, which means we have within us the one who knows the mind of the Father and who gives to us the mind of Christ.
That ought to boost your confidence a little bit.
Forgiven. People can now hear the heart of the Holy God. Or as Jesus said, my sheep know my voice.
Isaiah, forgiven and cleansed. And the first thing Isaiah hears is a question from the throne, who will go for us?
Forgiven. There's a sudden awareness of what this holy triune God actually cares about, what his concerns are, what he's trying to achieve, and how we are being called into it, into his mission, into his purposes for the world.
The Spirit of God having cleared away our sin and our Guilt brings us close to the Father's heart. And we discover that this Father is longing to bring his love and his forgiveness to his creation, to renew his world through Christ, to restore his people by the Spirit. As we come close, we hear a question thrumming from the throne, coming from the Father to the fatherless, from the Son who seeks and saves the lost, from the Spirit who we're told roves to and fro throughout the earth, looking for hearts that are open to Him. Whom shall I send?
I feel like you can hear the voice of the Father. He's saying behind that. I've got a mission, I've got a goal, I've got a plan to bring my salvation to the ends of the earth. Whom shall I send?
From the sun we can hear, I've got a dream, a vision to bring heaven and earth back together again, to restore what has been truly lost. The question is, who will go for us from the Spirit? I've got a purpose. I'm going to see my Father's promises through. I'm going to seek and to save and redeem and renew all things. But the question, whom shall I send? And who will go for us? Whom shall I send?
Throughout my teenage years, as I let this question of God reshape my heart and renew my mind, as I caught more and more of this holy vision and experienced more and more of God's holy love, his question grew in intensity within me. It built within me, whom shall I send? And who will go for us? Who shall I send? And who will go for us? And while Marina was making me squirm in the church foyer, this question was holding me fast to it, gripping my heart, resounding within me as though I were a gong that had been lifted and struck again and again. And this holy, forgiving God was asking this question of me personally. Tom, Tom, whom shall I send?
And Tom.
Actually, I was 14.
God would have still called me Thomas at the time.
Thomas, whom shall I send? And Thomas, who will go for us over and over again.
And then the words of Paul In Romans chapter 10, you know, Romans, we already heard 13. If anyone calls the name of the Lord, they'll be saved. But then he chimes in with this harmony, how then can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one they have not heard? How can they hear without someone preaching to them?
And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? And this was over and over again, whom shall I send? And who will go for us? How can they hear without someone preaching to them, Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? And so slowly, surely, and then all at once.
In the spring of 1989, at a youth convention in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. I've hardly ever been to Saskatchewan, like, ever.
But this time changed my life.
And I rose to my feet in response to another preacher's call who was asking boldly for anyone who would stand and commit their whole life to God's mission, their whole life to God's call, without reservation, without qualification, without term limits.
And so when I was 14 years old, I stood and I said, here am I, Send me.
I did not know what that meant.
I did not know. I thought I knew where I was going to go.
It would not be pastoring some boring Canadian church. I'll tell you, when you're 14, man, the images in your mind are jungles, ships, martyrdom, a few other things.
But I knew that God had called and I would go.
Didn't know anything at all, really. But I did know this. God had spoken to me clearly. I had heard his call. And so I offered myself back to him to use me as he would, however he would, wherever he would.
And I never looked back.
And he led me here.
To my white martyrdom. I'm just joking.
Well, that's my story of how God spoke to me.
What's your story?
You know, one of the reasons why I don't do this very often, but done with my notes. One of the reasons why we are doing this series is because not only we wanted to share personally with you ways that God has spoken to us through His Word, but we're also wanting to inspire and encourage you to consider the same. Like, how is God speaking to you? How has he spoken to you? How is he speaking to you through His Word?
And today it could be a whole host of things. It could be. But in this passage itself, depending on where you're at, God could be speaking a lot of different things to you, Right?
There's some of you here today where you've realized you really do need a vision of God's holiness.
Like somehow that's fallen off the end, that's dropped off. You've forgotten that there's a holy God.
And so you can come now back to the scriptures, back to the Lord, and ask him for a vision of his holy splendor. His vision. A vision of his holy love, so that your heart is re engaged in this worship that is continuing to happen around the throne room of God. Holy, holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. The whole earth is full of your glory. And worthy is the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world bought back. All these people, all the songs that we see, we're able to join that as we get a vision of God's holiness. And some of us, that's actually where we're at. We need to cry out for a vision of God's holiness that will convict and will challenge, that will fire you up.
Is anyone in that place today where you think, that's what I need?
That's what I need, A vision of God's holiness.
I need an angel to touch me on the lips with a hot coal, even if I look like I've been touched for the next few weeks.
If that's you, I implore you, ask for it. Go to the Scripture, go to Isaiah, go to Revelation, look through the whole arc of Scripture and ask the Lord to reveal to you how magnificently holy he really is so that you can worship him as he's meant to be worshiped. The high, exalted King who loved us so much that he would take our place to give us his holiness. That's awesome.
Ask for it.
For some of you today, it's the realization that this is a God who doesn't just burn you to a crisp.
This is a God before whom you can be incredibly transparently honest about your sin. Why?
Because he knows it all anyway.
Right?
And whether you're struck by this vision, I know that there are some of you, you've struggled so hard, you have no trouble imagining a God up there who's going to send lightning bolts down and just smack you or crush you or burn you up or sizzle you because you think that's the God that high and lifted up vision. Got it.
But I'm terrified of him, and I still am.
And you need to engage the full holiness of God. Not the holiness of some fake God, some holiness of some angry God, but the holiness of a God who in his holiness comes to you with forgiveness, with love, with grace, and wants to burn up your sin and restore you to life itself. And so to come to him with your woe is me. Do it. Come to him with your confession. Come to him and bow down and say, lord Jesus, I am a sinner. Please fix me.
Burn it.
Cleanse me.
I need your forgiveness because I've got nothing in and of myself.
And for some of you, it's time for you to actually come and bow down before this holy God and receive his true loving, grace filled forgiveness.
And to know that that is the transformation. As God wipes us clean and wraps us in his holiness and comes to live inside of us, we can experience true holiness. The beauty of holiness, the holiness of God, it transforms us.
That might be you today.
That might be you.
And then, dare I say, there might be a few of us today who need to realize not only is God holy, not only is God forgiving, but God is calling.
God is calling.
You know?
Sorry.
You know, some of you need to actually stop what you're doing and actually say yes to Jesus in a fresh way.
I would dare say in a crowd this size, there's probably two of you.
Why not?
You know, other people have quit their jobs and actually retrained and engaged in mission in some special way. You know that, right?
Some of you, that could be the call right now.
I did it when I was 14.
What's stopping you from doing it when you're 34 or 64? Some of you guys have already got your retirement checks in hand. You don't even need money, for crying out loud. Go get busy.
The Lord is calling. He's actually asking this question, whom shall I send? And he's looking around and going, what is that guy standing over there for? He's got like $500,000 in the bank.
Go get to work.
Right, 5 million in the bank. I don't know what you have in the bank, but there's times in our lives where we're faced with the call of God and he questions us and he says, what are you doing?
Like, seriously, what are you doing? You've got, like a few years left, some of you, really few years left.
It's true. It's not a joke. It's really true.
And I only have a few years left. And so the Lord is saying, whom shall I go? Who shall I send? Who will go for us? It's a real question.
Now, I know some of you are thinking, yeah, but not everyone's called to go on missions. I know that, but you might be.
Seriously, not everyone's called to retrain and be a pastor. I know that.
But you might be.
I'll tell you one thing. Every single one of us is called to disciple and evangelize our neighbor.
Every single one of us needs to reevaluate. When's the last time we shared our faith with someone who doesn't know Jesus?
How often are we praying for the salvation of a brother or a sister or a friend or a neighbor or someone you work with every one of us are called into the mission of God. Make no mistake about it. But when I say that sort of blanket, you know, all of you feel the sigh of relief. Oh, good. That means I don't need to quit my job. Oh, good. That means I don't have to go and be.
Not necessarily.
Some of you might actually need to reevaluate what you do, like, with the rest of your life. You know why I say that? Because I was with Chase a year and a half ago when I was having a conversation with Chase, our beloved pastoral resident who is currently witnessing to people in the outfit of Jedi Jesus at the expo. Anyway, what I realized is for a lot of years, because I was so concerned as a pastor that people never feel like I'm thinking, I've got a higher call than you because I'm a pastor. I don't believe that at all.
But in my effort to make sure that people didn't think that, I downplay the pastoral call or I downplay the missionary call. I downplay the full time, like, give it all for Jesus call. Okay. Because I didn't want people to feel bad. Yeah, welcome to Tom's life. I don't want you to feel bad.
Well, this is me making you feel a little bit bad because I actually realized sitting there with Chase, man, I've been short selling this thing. And guess what? The Church of Jesus Christ in 2026 really needs people who will step into pastoral roles, who will go as missionaries, who actually step into leadership, Whether that's full time, part time, whether that's actually using your retirement to do something other than fill in the blank, whether that. I don't know what it is, but actually these people will say, you know what? Sign me up. I'm gonna start spending more time in this. Sign me up. I'm gonna go get retrained. Sign me up. I'm gonna give the rest of my life to doing what matters for the church. Because that's who Jesus died for and that's who he's coming back for.
And so whatever it takes, that kind of stand where you stand and say, look, whatever it takes, Jesus, here I am. Send me.
I mean, shucks, it's just me, but send me anyway.
Put me in coach.
And he will.
And he will.
So some of you, two of you, I suspect God is calling you, or at least he's asking the question, you know, whom shall I send and who will go for us? This is a holy God who is filled with love and he empowers his people.
By His Spirit to go as he was sent into the world to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe everything that Jesus had commanded them, which included going into the world and preaching the gospel and deciding, you know.
And so we all need to say yes to that call.
And then consider perhaps that God is calling you into something new.
Because his goal, of course, his goal is that this world would be restored to Christ.
And he's determined to use the church to do it.
[00:39:05] Speaker A: Thanks for listening in today.
We hope you feel encouraged and challenged.
If you know someone who would benefit from what you have heard today, please share this podcast.
For more information or if you have questions, you can connect with us through our website, EricksonCovenant CA.
You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Erickson Covenant Church.
