2 Timothy 4:1-2 • Singing Out the Word

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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)

I'm going to ask that you look in your Bibles at 2 Timothy, 2 Timothy chapter 4 as we'll consider the first two verses.



 Each January for the past several years, I have tried to use these opening Sundays of the New Year to answer the question, "Why church?"



 After all, those who study North America say that in the United States now, the number of persons claiming to be born-again Christians as a percentage of the population has not changed since roughly World War II. Roughly a third of this population claims to be Bible-believing, born-again Christians. But as the culture secularizes, even among those who claim to be born-again, Bible-believing Christians, less than half will be in a church on any given Sunday.



 The consequence is, if you think optimistically about this culture right now, four out of five will say on any given Sunday morning, "The church is not worth it to me."



 Less optimistically, seven of eight will say, "We don't need to be in church." Something else is more valuable.



 A late morning snooze, a trip to the lake house, a game on the golf course, or a sporting event with a child, you could multiply the reasons. But it's only fair to ask if between four or five or seven of eight of us are not attending church regularly anymore, why bother?



 Why church?



 Some of the answer is in 2 Timothy 4, verses 1 and 2. I'll ask that you stand as we honor God's Word and consider the importance of what is given to us to do.



 Paul writes to a young minister, "I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and by His appearing in His kingdom.



 Preach the Word.



 Be ready in season and out of season. Prove, rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching." Let's pray together.



 Heavenly Father, break the bread of life with us. Help us to feast upon Your Word.



 And even as we would, savor its goodness.



 And afresh why it is ours not merely to savor but to guard and to proclaim.



 To our families, to neighbor, to coworker, to the world even that would reject the Word. Teach us its power and teach us our wonderful task of participating in Your mission for Christ's sake. This we ask in Jesus' name, amen.



 Please be seated.



 Why church?



 I couldn't help but think of a letter I received recently from church leaders ministering to typhoon-stricken villages in the Philippines.



 And one sentence that jumped out at me from that newsletter was this, "We shared the Word of God even as we shared things like toys and food.



 For those who were ministering to others, they perceived as important as the nourishment of food or the hope that would come through some Christmas toys was having the Word of God."



 The letter continued.



 We went to an elementary school and fed them with porridge and cooked rice and fish.



 We were able to present Christian songs and dance numbers. And we read from the Bible and shared the good news of salvation.



 Some clapped, some smiled and said, "Thank you." We hardly slept day and night. There was so much to do. We fed close to 2,000 people.



 And we shared the Word of God from the back of a pickup truck.



 We prayed and people prayed with us.



 Someone shared, "I lost five members of my family."



 There was a quick hug, a tearful smile, an encouraging word. And then we shared the words of Jeremiah 31, 3 and 4, "I have loved you with an everlasting love.



 And with loving kindness, I have called you.



 I will build you up again. And you will be rebuilt. You will go out to dance and with joy." And we heard someone say, "Amen."



 It is an amen we want to say, and we want our children to say, and we want the world to say that God has prepared in His Word a message of salvation such that even with the cruelties and the tragedies and the disappointments of this world, we might somehow hear the Word of God with such power and truth and reality that it speaks to us, even in our crises, in such a way that we can still say amen to the truth of God, even amidst the tragedy of this world, and not only us, but our children and our loved ones and our school peers and our workmates.



 And yet we recognize it's a time that it becomes increasingly hard to speak into other people's reality in such a way that we would ever expect them to say amen.



 And so we need the Word of God itself to tell us how does it work that people would hear it in such a way that it would make a difference to them, that what the church is all about safeguarding the deposit of truth so that it can be distributed for another generation. What makes that worthwhile at all?



 The answer presented here in God's Word is simply reminding us God works through His Word. There is incredible power as well as incredible love evident in the Word. The power is evident just in the opening verses as Paul the Apostle writes his very last letter on earth to a young minister and says, "I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus."



 Paul is saying, "Yes, I'm a human person charging you, Timothy. Carry on the ministry." But who is actual witness to this charge?



 God identified with Christ Jesus, which means God the Father and Christ Jesus, and Jesus who is now the ascended Lord. If He is present, it is by His Holy Spirit. So we recognize the Apostle Paul is saying, "What is happening is I charge you to minister the Word in the church is that God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are present, endorsing, notarizing, authorizing this distribution of the Word." And that in itself is a message of immense power. After all, you could not launch an atomic weapon without a charge from the president.



 Imagine the power of something that requires the presence of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the triune creator of the universe. And yet Paul is saying, "That is the one who is present, giving us just some indication of the power of this Word."



 But the power is not just in the presence of those who come to notarize the charge, but in the message itself that is made plain by the parties to the charge. Did you see those parties identified in verse 1 right at the beginning? "I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus." When the Apostle uses the titles of the Godhead that way, he's referring first to God the Father and then Christ Jesus.



 Remember Christ is the title, the anointed one, the long prophesied Messiah, the one that God from the beginning of humanity said, "He will come for you." And even at the end of the Bible, John reminds us, "He was the lamb slain before the foundations of the world." He is the one who would suffer at the command of the Father for the sins of the people that God would claim to himself. He is that anointed one, that Christ the Messiah.



 And at the same time, he is Christ Jesus. That is his name. And it means deliverer. And we are reminded that by the crushing load of sin's weight that came upon him at a cross, God would allow Jesus to take the penalty for your sin in mind so that we would be delivered from our own sin. And the fact that he is present now to say that is the ministry of the Holy Spirit working beyond us, beyond our words, beyond our abilities, beyond our eloquence, beyond we have those verses memorized or don't we? No, listen. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit come to not only minister the Word, but tell us what is to be believed. He came.



 He lived righteously. He died upon a cross for our sin. He rose the victor. He ascended. And he is coming again in glory.



 And for that reason, preach the Word, sing it out, and remember the power of the one who gives you this charge.



 If we're going to think more about how that Word works, we'll think about it just a little bit in terms of the Lord's expectation of how the Word will affect people. But before we go forward, we have to go back a little bit to understand why the apostle would say even this charge to proclaim the Word requires the presence of God.



 What is that Word that has been given to us in the Scriptures? If you just back up one chapter, Paul has described it for Timothy, 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 16, 2 Timothy 3 and verse 16. There Paul writes, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and training in righteousness."



 From the apostles' perspective, the Word that we have been given in Scripture is God's very Word to us as though He is breathing out by His own voice what He intends to say, which means not only is the Word presenting the power of God in ways that challenge us, this Word of the Scriptures is the very voice of God yet present for His people.



 If we were to believe that, this Word is inspired. God is breathing out by His Holy Spirit what He intended for us to hear and what He still means for us to hear. It just changes the way you read Scripture. No longer just dead print on a page, religious dogma from the past, some sort of cultural artifact that religions passed. Instead we begin to perceive God as saying, "No, this Scripture is my very Word to you now, my very voice to you now." Four hundred times in the Bible the words appear, "Thus says the Lord."



 Another hundred times the Word came to Isaiah or Jeremiah or Hosea or an apostle as God is describing something that's mysterious to us, this process by which He is giving us His own Word in the Bible set before us so that we would have His voice as it were speaking to us, directing us, helping us, encouraging us, wherever we go.



 It's a mystery, but the process is not unexplained in the Scripture. The apostle Peter says it this way, "Holy man of God spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."



 That process is not entirely clear, but the result is plain so the apostle Paul will later say to those at Thessalonica, "I commend you that when you receive the Word from us, you did not receive it as the Word of man.



 But as it is in truth, the Word of God."



 To actually believe that in the Scriptures what we have is the Word of God for us, intended to speak beyond the past, intended to speak beyond the pages, to be the voice of Christ to our very hearts, is absolutely essential for faithfulness, not only to the Lord, but to understanding what the church is all about.



 If you just think of it, almost always unfaithfulness, unbelief, begins with an argument about the human nature of Scripture.



 Well, just people wrote a long time ago, just men like us, fallible people, people who didn't understand our modern scientific world. It's just a human product, just a cultural artifact of the past which allows you to dispense with it or disregard it. Instead the Word of God is saying, "No, this is the Word of God, the one who knew the end from the beginning. That same God has spoken in His Word for His people so that all that is necessary says the apostle for life and godliness has been made apparent to us." And that's not just necessary as an antidote to unbelief, but strength for belief.



 My marriage is coming undone.



 My child is wandering away.



 My boss is requiring of me things that I would never do on my own.



 What if the Word of God would come to you and give you instruction and give you comfort and give you promises? And it wasn't an ancient artifact, but was in fact the Word of God for you in this mind, as though the voice of Jesus was still speaking to you.



 I've mentioned to you before when one of my own students came back after some years of ministry to instruct me in the power of understanding that inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He said this, he wanted to communicate to his young people just the sense that this Bible is not dead print on a page, but the actual voice of God to the hearts of his people. And the way he did it was this, he said he invited the youth group over to one of the parents' homes, took the kids downstairs where he had placed in a circle chairs around the perimeter of the basement. Put a Bible verse in each of the chairs and put another chair in the middle of the circle. And said here's what we are going to do. We are going to ask somebody in the group to sit in the middle chair and we're going to blindfold them. And then we're going to ask them to identify one of the problems that they have. And when they speak of their problem, those of you who have a verse that applies to that problem, you sing it out.



 And it will be because they're blindfolded as though God himself were speaking to them.



 Now my friend, the youth leader, thought this was a really great idea.



 The kids thought it was really dumb.



 They didn't want to participate, they didn't want to go along. The only person who sat in the circle talked about how do you get an A in Mrs. Bailey's math class and somehow there wasn't a good Bible verse for that. He was just going terribly.



 And then a new girl volunteered.



 I'll sit in the chair.



 They put the blindfold on her.



 And the first thing she said was, "I am so miserable.



 I don't know if I can stand my life anymore."



 And the kids were embarrassed for her. And they looked down at their shoelaces but somebody looked down at the verse he was holding. To the young woman who had just said, "I am so miserable. I don't know if I can stand my life anymore." Somebody read, "But God is faithful.



 He will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able but will with the temptation provide a way of escape so that you can stand up under it." She said, "No one cares about me."



 Somebody else read, "But I have loved you with an everlasting love and called you with loving kindness."



 And then she responded with anger. "You don't understand. My parents kicked me out last night and they said, "Never come back."



 And somebody else read, "But I will never leave you nor will I forsake you."



 They took the blindfold off of her and she was crying.



 She had a question, "Why doesn't God really talk to me that way?"



 And the youth leader had the privilege of saying, "He just did.



 That was His Word to you. That was the way it was always designed. That's what God always intends by His Word to speak to the hearts of His people. I think of the thing that I do week to week and how I would despair if I did not believe that. The habits of sin, the ways that people think that have kept them from progressing in the Christian life and to think that I'm going to come up with the illustration, the example, the argument, the eloquence that's going to change people. It would be so futile except to believe that Christ comes in by His Holy Spirit using His Word to speak to the actual hearts of His people so that while you hear a human voice, what God is doing by His Spirit is He's actually taking His truth into the human heart for eternal change. And there is no power on earth that is parallel that can change hearts forever. And yet that's precisely what God is doing with His Word. We're so silly at times. We think I need something different. I need something better. If God would just write His message in the clouds or if He could speak on the thunder, then I would listen. Listen, if God were to write in the clouds, it would blow away. If He would just speak in the thunder, it would fade away.



 And so God says, "Would you mind if I just wrote it down and put it in your hands that you could have it wherever you go?" And the ministry of the church is to make sure as families and children who are well-versed kids, as moms teach other moms, as we teach one another, is to make sure that God's Word is known. And that's not just for young people.



 That's for all of us who need to hear the voice of Jesus at every stage of life.



 One of the elders in this church wrote recently of the dying of his mother and the importance of Scripture to that family and to her as she heard the words of her children, now coming back to her on her own deathbed, writes our elder, "As she lay on her bed with the end near, one of her children would begin a Bible verse.



 Do not be anxious about anything.



 And then mom would fill in.



 But in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, make your request known to God." And then the child would say, "And the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."



 It would go on back and forth with additional words of Scripture, ministering the voice of God to our family. A child would say, "Have I not commanded you?"



 And mom would say, "Be strong and courageous. The child, do not be afraid, mom. Do not be discouraged, child, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."



 As she grew weaker, the words from mom became fewer and fewer and softer and softer, the point of a whisper. But the exchange continued, "A child, peace I leave with you. Mom, my peace I give you. Child, I do not give you as the world gives. Mom, so do not let your hearts be troubled.



 Child, and do not be afraid."



 Mom, "I will never leave you, child, nor will I forsake you." These words of Scripture are not dead letter because of the work of the Holy Spirit who continues to bring the presence of the truth of God to our hearts, transforming our reality, our hope by what God has said. The very voice of Jesus continues to work among us and in us. Martin Luther said the church is God's mouth house. As though when we're here, by proclaiming the word of God, it's not just the words of men. God is speaking to his people, to us, to our children, to generations to come, to those who gather from Mexico, to those who take the message out to their peers. God is giving us the very voice of Jesus. John Calvin said, "God has so chosen to anoint the lips and the tongues of his service that when they speak, the voice of Jesus yet resounds in the church."



 I only hear my voice. You hear my voice at one level, but at another level do you recognize when I speak, the voice of Jesus is speaking to you.



 We think I could do anything. I could face anything. It's just Jesus we're hearing, and he's saying, "I am! Listen to my voice. Listen to the voice in my word that is telling you." And it's not just here. It's wherever the people go who are touched by the ministry of the church.



 It's not just young people. It's not just people at the extremities of age.



 You think of a soldier in full vitality who is walking down the streets of Afghanistan. As trained, his eye is searching every rooftop for snipers, and his eyes are instinctively evaluating every person he passes at their torso to see if they are wearing a suicide bomb.



 And if he could walk those streets and at the same time hear the voice of Jesus, "But I will never leave you, nor will I forsake you."



 And when that same soldier returns here, and by reflex now, even walking down our streets his eyes continue to look at the rooftops. And instinctively, he doesn't even mean to, he looks at people as they pass to see what's around their torsos. And when at night he awakes, wondering, "Where am I?"



 He can hear the Word of Jesus.



 "I will never leave you, nor will I forsake you."



 And it is the beauty and the wonder of this inspired word that we have that makes the ministry of the church so vital for us as we gather here, but for everyone touched by us. I rejoiced, I must tell you, to watch my kids at Christmastime, I think, do a better job than we did to make sure that on the videos and the audios that they have their children watch, the voice of God is just constantly resounding to their children as they are making sure that in the perspectives, in the life of their children, they are making sure they are hearing not just ancient words, but the present reality of the voice of their God.



 Because what God is doing with His Word is fulfilling His own purposes in our lives. Those purposes are made clear in the second portion of chapter of verse 1.



 Paul writes, "I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge,



 the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom.



 Two things are said at once as this word's charge is maintained. There is an expectation for God that eternity is being affected. And one way that's being affected is people are hearing the warning of a holy God who is saying, "Jesus is coming again to judge those who are alive and those who have already passed away."



 Our culture has just spent so much time and energy in the sentiment of gentle Jesus, meek and mild, lying in a manger, and not recognizing that what they are doing, as we are doing, is welcoming our judge.



 The one who will examine heart and life for righteousness according to the holiness of God, that is the one who is coming. That is why we are charged to make sure that friend and family know there is warning in the reality of the coming of Jesus. But not only warning, profound blessing, as we are told as well, not only come to judge the living and dead, but He in His appearing will bring His kingdom. He comes not just to judge, but to rule in righteousness and love with peace of soul that goes to eternity, with every tear removed, with tragedies set right. It's what God says He will do by the coming of His Son and the rule of His kingdom.



 And when we say that, we recognize this word of God is not merely for our comfort, but to convince and to convict and to convert so that people claim this reality of the kingdom of God against the judgment of God. That's why we have the word. That's why God is sinning by His Spirit and our very words, the truth of God into other words.



 And it happens in ways that are unexpected and yet delightful at the same time. One of our children at his wedding, because he wanted to minister the word of God to friends and family and acquaintances, some of whom he knew did not know the Lord, he included an insert that was a message from your Father in heaven. Some of you may have seen it. In which is detailed not only the promises of God, but the path to salvation in Jesus Christ. He wanted friends and family and acquaintances to hear, to have the voice of God come into their lives and their presence. I don't know that we know that anything much happened at that time, but I will tell you



 that my mother just a couple of weeks ago going through some old papers found that insert from my son's wedding bulletin.



 And she made copies of it and she sent it to my brother in prisons, cellmates, so that at Christmas time when my brother was calling my mother, one of his cellmates got on the phone to my mother.



 You made me cry.



 How did I make you cry?



 I read that message that you sent.



 If you receive the gift of my son Jesus, you will receive me.



 First John 2.23, "And nothing will ever separate you from my love."



 Romans 8 verses 38 and 39, "Come home and I'll throw the biggest party heaven has ever seen." Romans 15.7, "And he said, when I thought that Jesus would throw a party for me, I cried."



 I want you to think about something. This message was originally prepared years ago, easily a decade ago, with my son's wedding.



 But the moment that it begins to work, we become aware of its working, is now in a prison cell in Mississippi, as people have heard the Word of God according to God's appointment in God's time.



 And we need to know that as we recognize what Paul the Apostle sang in verse 2 is saying, "Preach the Word. Be ready in season and out of season. Just make it known that preach is the Greek word kerosos, which I think of as always the opera singer kerosos, which just means sing it out. It's not your job to say what the effect should be. Now's the right or the wrong. Sing it out. Because if God is working, He will bring the fruit in His time according to His way. Our job is merely to make the Word known. His is to bring it to sprouting and the life of His people. And He knows it's right. He who knows the complexities of the human experience and the hardness of the human heart far more than we do says, "Just make my word known.



 Leave the rest to me. Be ready in season and out for what needs to be said." For those of you who are sports, it's that word about be ready simply means to stand by or even stand over as though a coach who is coaching basketball players or football or volleyball is saying, "Assume the ready position."



 You be ready. And observe the movements of your opponent. Observe the movements or the difficulty of the one who is hearing what you're saying. But say what needs to be said and trust the fruit to God.



 And when we have done that, ultimately what happens is that God is working profoundly beyond our expectation. He's only saying, "Sing it out.



 Let me bring the fruit."



 Some years ago while we were on vacation, I was assigned with my great skills to watch the laundry in the laundromat.



 Kathy took the kids on something more exciting.



 And I was in the laundromat reading. I'm sure my Bible.



 At some point in my reading, I became aware that there was a man in the laundromat who was just beating on a dryer that had just eaten his quarters and not produced the drying.



 And after a few choice words for the dryer, he turned to me and said, "If there's a God in heaven, why does he allow things like this to happen?"



 And I thought, "If there's a God in heaven, why won't he let me have a vacation?" No.



 Because I'm thinking, "God, I don't want to deal with this. I'm on vacation.



 I don't know what to do here."



 It's been years, but I don't remember the exact words. But somehow I said, "You know, this world is not the way God made it.



 It's a mess because we're a mess, and that's why God sent Jesus to help us."



 Now, I must tell you, the man at first looked startled, like, "I wonder if I'm dealing with a preacher."



 And then he looked grateful, and then guilty, and then fled the laundromat.



 I would love to tell you some great conversion story. I don't know it.



 What I do know is, when we sing the Word, God brings the fruit according to His plan in His time. And the reason that we make it known is we believe that. We don't know when the penny will drop. We don't know when the Spirit has the greatest leverage. But we recognize what will be needed in that moment is the voice of Jesus, the Word of truth. And so we make it known. When our children are small and we have some control over them, when our children are larger and we wait for that moment of tact to be, we just put something in the conversation. When co-workers are cursing in the name of God, when friends have turned away from God, when the spouse we love has walked away from God, we still believe the Word works. And we are ready, in season and out, for speaking that Word at the opportunities that God provides. Because what God Himself is saying is, you need to reprove and rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching. A lot of big words there, but we kind of get it. You need to correct. Tell people what's right.



 Reprove.



 Well tell them what's wrong, too. That's what the Word of God provides.



 But ultimately, exhort.



 It's a hard, old word, but it means encourage, motivate. Don't just say what's right and wrong, but motivate. How do we motivate them? All right, a little more Greek for today's sermon. The word for exhort there is the word paracoleo, from which we get the word paraclete. Anybody remember from the book of John where the paraclete comes? Who is that?



 The Holy Spirit. And the word simply means come alongside.



 And now, here's what Paul is saying. Yes, tell people what's right, tell people what's wrong, but come alongside them.



 How?



 With great patience and careful instruction.



 How long is your patience?



 Conversation?



 The youth of your child?



 Or even to old age for their sake? Your patience. God, help me find the right words. God I pray for their soul. God through Jesus, speak to their hearts. Bring your Holy Spirit with co-worker, with boss, with those who are turning away, with spouse who has walked away. We speak this truth of God. Believe the Holy Spirit is working in His timing, with His leverage, and that God will do amazing things with His word to make people believe the truth in ways that are beyond us, as we would reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching.



 One very fine example of that happened just last semester at the University of California, Berkeley, as Isabella Chow.



 One young woman on the student senate was deciding what she would do about a resolution that was being approved by that university's senate, which was objecting to the Title IX changes being proposed by the Trump administration.



 Some of you are aware that the Title IX changes that were coming by last fall were those that were saying that one's gender should be established by their biological sex rather than by their psychological choice.



 Isabella wondered, "I don't believe that's right, but what do I do? Do I vote against? Do I just abstain? Do I speak against? Do I go along with them just to keep them happy?" The rest of the student senators.



 The choice was taken away from her because when there was some question about what her vote would be in the student newspaper and others, they began to accuse her of being against reproductive health and wellness, of being against legal protection for survivors of sexual violence. Everything that would be thrown at her was thrown at her. And she said, "In order to make my position clear, I knew I had to speak."



 This is what she said before the vote.



 "I have said and will always say that discrimination against or harassment of any person or people group is never, ever okay."



 She condemned people who bully other persons under the guise of Christianity and said in God's eyes and in her own eyes, "The LGBT community is significant, valid, wanted, and loved."



 She continued, "As a Christian, I personally do believe that certain acts and lifestyles conflict with what is good and right and true. I believe that God created male and female at the beginning of time and designated sex for marriage between one man and one woman.



 For me to love another person does not mean that I silently concur when at the bottom of my heart I do not believe that your choices are right or best for you as an individual."



 You can guess the response.



 Eruption of rage that hit the social media and the national media as well. The next week's Senate meeting, she knew and the church that came alongside her knew what was going to happen. They wrote to her, "You're going to sit there and be yelled at.



 At the same time, know that we are praying for you, for your team, and for the LGBT community."



 The words were of course prophetic as at the next Senate meeting she was accused of being partially responsible for the killing of LGBT persons.



 She was accused of abandoning her Christian faith. She was accused of abandoning those who had elected her. And for three hours listened to accusations in great hurt and rage and frequent vulgarity.



 Her response, "If I didn't have the prayers and encouragement of the church, I would have buckled in one minute, but she did not."



 Do you recognize those words, "complete patience" and "teaching"? Are the words "long suffering" and "teaching"?



 Willingness to sacrifice oneself for the good of others as Christ Himself did.



 As a consequence, what she did was listen to the rebuke and then said at the end of it all, the hardest part of the meeting was not enduring the accusations.



 But witnessing the wounded hearts and broken lives that were behind all the anger and hate, she wrote, "Each of these people who are so angry has been hurt oftentimes by the church."



 And she said she realized how much more they and she needed the grace of Jesus Christ.



 What has happened since?



 Of course, much more conversation.



 One of the things that's happened on that university community and the surrounding churches, if those Bible-believing churches had begun to play videos and audio recordings of the three hours of the accusations that were against Isabella Ciao, do you know why?



 They said, "So we can better understand the hurt of the LGBT community and how we can minister to them in Christ's name."



 Ours is not vengeance.



 Ours is not getting our own.



 Ours is proclaiming the Word of God, correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and long suffering and complete instruction that is needed, not leaving out what ought to be said. Isabella Ciao is not superhuman. She confesses to questioning, "God, why me? Why put me in this position?"



 She answered her own question.



 If no one represents the truth, who will?



 The light doesn't stop shining when the darkness gets darker. This is not a time to back down. It's a time to continue shining the light of Christ in all love and grace and humility.



 So why church?



 If no one represents the truth, then who will?



 The light doesn't stop shining when the darkness gets darker. This is not a time to back down. It's a time to continue shining the light of Christ in all love, all grace, and all humility. Preach the Word, correct?



 Look and come alongside with great patience and careful instruction. This is our calling.



 Father, so work in us, I pray, that we might be prepared for the situations, the persons,



 the loved ones who need our voice to hear Jesus' voice.



 Work, I pray, through us with courage that we might be prepared by compassion to help souls prepare for the coming judgment and kingdom.



 You have so blessed us to give us the voice of Jesus every day.



 Make us his voice, we pray.



 In Jesus' name, amen.